The Second Generation Book Three: Branded
by SixthOfLorien
Summary: In the 3rd book of TSG series, Hazel finds herself back at the Institute with no memory of Jamie and his friends. Between her flourishing abilities, the mystery of her parents' deaths, and the new group of Shadowhunters that pull her further and further away from her old life, Hazel must come face to face with the end of the road that will force her to make unthinkable decisions.
1. Eviction

***Jamie POV***

* * *

"Nothing?" Aaron asked, squinting against the sun as it glimmered off the surface of Lake Lyn. "Not even your name?"

"Nada," I grumbled, tossing a rock and watching it skip against the water. I turned my head to the right, shifting my gaze around Aaron's broad frame. "It's like I never existed."

Hazel Roberts grunted, Anastasia's elbow catching her square in the nose. The brown girl flung herself backwards, her hands covering her face as she bent over.

"Oh my God, oh my God oh my God," Stasi shouted, hurrying towards her. "Haze I'm so sorry! I was almost positive you would du-"

Stasi's body hit the ground with a thud, Hazel grinning as she towered over her.

"Don't ever apologize unless you see blood," Hazel panted. "Otherwise any old yahoo could put you on your back." She helped my cousin to her feet, her thick dark tresses clinging to her sweaty forehead. I tried not to let my eyes linger on the way her collarbones heaved with each breath.

It'd been two and a half weeks since I'd dragged Hazel out of Lake Lyn, and we'd done everything we could possibly think of to explain why she couldn't remember half of us. We tried summoning Nathaniel, but the Outer Angels were tempermental and rarely came at the deman of someone who wasn't God himself. People all over Alicante were throwing suggestions left and right, but barely anyone had been brave enough to go near her after seeing what had followed her out of the Lake that night. I shuddered. Just add that to the list of problems that were already riding our asses.

"Stasi said it's better not to tell her anything. She thinks if we say too much we could overwhelm her mind, really mess her up or something. I don't want to take any chances but I can't stand her not knowing who we are. It's ridiculous."

"She'll remember you Jamie," Aaron promised quietly. "Just give her time."

"Sure," I said flatly, watching as Troy ran over to clap her on the back. "Time."

It was a real bitch that Hazel had come back from the dead only to have completely forgotten about everybody back home. It was an even bigger bitch that the only people she _did _remember were the freaks she'd decided to save from Creto's Institute on the other side of the Portal. Troy, Taz, Wheat. Anatasia was an exception, she was the only one of us besides Thomas that had been taken across the Portal too, but I was still irritated.

"At least she's back man, you know? Could've been a lot worse. I don't know why you feel so down."

"Down?" I rolled my eyes at him, shooting him a look. "How would feel if your girlfriend disappeared for six months?"

"Well I-"

"And then RE-appeared with a pack of horny, irritating, bumbling idiots?"

"Well technically Taz is her brother so-"

"And THEN died in your arms, which counts as ANOTHER week of being gone-"

"-but her body was sort of here, in Idris, so she wasn't necessarily gon-"

"And THEN, when she came back to LIFE, you had to meet her _douchebag _of a father, who isn't even technically her father because her _biological _parents may or may not be dead," I flung a hand in Taz's direction. "A possibility brought to our attention thanks to Jordan Jr. over there-"

"I think you're being a little dramatic-"

"AND DIDN'T EVEN REMEMBER YOUR NAME."

"Did you just call her your girlfriend?" Darren asked, grinning slyly at me as he made his way towards us. I shot him a look before turning back to Aaron.

"I am not dramatic."

"Please, you're practically a Queen."

"I will hurt you." I grumbled, crossing my arms.

"You're so cute when you're jealous," Darren teased. "For once in his life there's a girl Jamie Lightwood can't have."

"I think you're forgetting about the fact that I went through the Portal and was gone for the entire night before all the chaos occured..." I drawled, raising an eyebrow and grinning to myself. Aaron's mouth popped open.

"You did not." he whispered. Darren knitted his eyebrows together.

"Did not what?" he asked.

I didn't reply, simply keeping my eyes on the lake and trying not to smile.

"OH MY GOD YOU DID THE NASTY." Aaron cried. His voice was so loud the birds flew out of the bushes like someone had shot a gun. Hazel and Stasi stopped their sparring to look at us in confusion. I shot Aaron a look before meeting Hazel's eyes- a heavy, deep, dark brown across the field.

"I liked it better when her eyes were greenish." I mumbled absent-mindedly. The girl glared at me before turning her nose in the air and following Anastasia back into the Accords Hall.

"Forget her eyes, can we please talk about that ass?" Darren cried, watching as she walked away. Aaron swatted him on the back of the head.

"Women aren't peices of meat you buttwipe," Aaron hissed, letting his eyes reluctantly trail up Hazel's legs. "But I mean if Jamie _really _can't help himself from sharing, I'm game."

The three of us laughed as I ran my fingers through my hair, silently making a note to cut it as soon as I could.

"It was..."

"Well come on, don't hold out on us dude." Darren pushed, grinning at me.

"It was hot."

Darren gave me a flat, irritated look.

"Yeah, no shit, but the thing is you had Hazel in bed! Come on, what was she _like_."

"She was hot!" I insisted, raising my eyebrows. "Literally, like burning. My arms still hurt when I think about it."

"Your arms?" Aaron knit his eyebrows together. "What kind of weird ass positions were you guys i-"

"Look all I'm saying is that she's really, really warm when she gets excited," I cut in. There was a moment of silence in the air before I finished with a grin. "Inside _and _out."

"That's my boy!" Darren screamed, throwing a fist in the air triumphantly.

"I wonder if Johanna's warm..." Aaron murmured curiously. Darren rolled his eyes.

"You're never gonna find out if you keep being a wuss about it."

"I am not a wuss!" Aaron cried, folding his arms in irritation.

"Right," I chided. "And I'm not the most beautiful human being on Earth."

"Oh stop being so full of yourself," Aaron grumbled, rolling his eyes. "I could be pretty and put on concealer in the morning too if I wanted."

"I do not wear concealer!" I hissed, my mouth dropping open. "It's tinted moisturizer and I-"

"Will you two divas shut the Hell up?" Hazel cut in, glancing over her shoulder as we entered the Hall.

Darren crossed his arms over his chest.

"Is it just me or do girls get sexier when they're mean?" he said slyly. I shot him a look, his face falling. "You know," he tried to save himself. "I mean if you're into that kind of thing."

"Shut up." I grumbled. We followed everyone into the Inquisitor's office.

* * *

***Hazel POV***

* * *

A round, chubby man with pink cheeks and white, snowy hair turned to us as we filtered into the office. My eyes flickered about the bright, circular room. There were curved bookshelves lined against every wall, stopping only to make room for a large, white fireplace and the door we'd come through. There were white marble floors and windows, covered in blue in gold tapestry, each bearing the same marking: an angelic rune.

My left shoulder began to twitch in irritation, and I reached back to scratch it.

"You're an idiot." Troy laughed in my ear, brushing his fingers over the spot when I couldn't reach it. I rolled my eyes at him, gently tossing my elbow back into his ribs.

"Jamie!" the chubby man called out, grinning when the tall boy with bronzed hair pushed his way to the front of our crowd. The man's face fell. "You look like you haven't eaten in weeks."

"Byron, you look like you've eaten enough for the both of us." The boy retorted, grinning. I tried to hide a snicker, Jamie glancing over his shoulder at me for a moment too long.

"Hilarious," Byron grumbled, leaning back in his chair. "You should be a comedian."

"Well, if Shadowhunting doesn't work out..."

"That's what I've called you here to talk about," Byron murmured, his face losing all sense of humor. Jamie clenched his jaw. "The Clave has decided that it would be best for you and your...friends to leave Alicante."

"We're not his friends," I piped up quickly, Jamie shooting me a dirty look. I waved him off. "Whatever he did shouldn't get the rest of us in trouble."

"Whatever _I_ did?!" Jamie cried incredulously, looking at me with wide eyes. "I'm sorry, but I don't recall it being _my _blood that set free a giant, raging, sea creature."

"Technically she's a creature of flame." Stasi grimaced, shrugging when Jamie shot her a look.

"I think the origin of said creature's element is slightly irrelevant at this poi-"

"Irrelevant?!" Jamie raised his eyebrows at me.

"Are you gonna come up with your own arguments or do you plan on mimicking the last word of my every sentence?"

"You're impossible."

"And you're annoying!"

"It doesn't matter who is what," Byron boomed, silencing us both quickly as he stood from his chair. "Because _both _of you are leaving. The event at Lake Lyn has caused more destruction within the past two weeks than any other of that in the history of Idris."

"I would assume that's not counting the time we ruined the Accords Hall last year?" Darren retorted, confusion washing over me. Why did I feel like I knew what he was talking about?

"Why would you want us to leave?" Aaron demanded. "If that thing is out there wouldn't it be better for us all to stick together?"

"That _thing_, will be coming for _her._" We all turned our heads to the dark corner, where a tall, slim woman wearing a silk purple cloak emerged from the shadows. She had long, thin, black hair that hung bone-straight to her collarbone. Her black eyes were cold and small, set underneath proudly arched black eyebrows. She had a long, straight nose and her lips were wide and thin as paper. She looked exactly like the brawny kid next to me.

"Mom?" he asked quietly.

Well that explains it.

The woman twisted her face upwards into a small smile, her dark eyes twinkling. I scrunched my face up, flickering my eyes betwen the two of them. Now was not the time for sentimental reunions. Troy laughed at my expression, covering his face with his hands.

"Something funny?" Jamie challenged, raising an eyebrow as Aaron's face began turning scarlet. Troy sobered up, shaking his head.

"Other than this entire situation? No."

"Jesus Christ."

"Don't get mad just because I waltzed into your country and-"

"Technically you swam," Jamie stated matter-of-factly, Troy growing more agitated by the second. "And unless you plan on going for _another _dip in the lake, I suggest you shut the Hell up. You weren't even supposed to be here, the only reason you're alive is because of her and even she's pushing her luck at this point." Jamie's eyes flickered to me and I put a hand on my chest, pretending to be hurt.

"No one here is completely responsible for this mess," Byron cut in, raising a gentle hand to calm us. "But Jameson, you _are _the one that brought her here. You're the one who went looking for trouble."

"Yeah Jameson," I chided. "It's your fault I'm here. I'm _your_ responsibility."

"He saved your life!" Darren shouted angrily, Jamie holding him back.

"Forget it," the boy with the bronze hair said icily. The pit of my stomach began to burn as heat rose to my face. I clenched my jaw, crossing my arms over my chest as I pulled my eyes away from him. "None of it matters anymore anyways."

"Amen." I grumbled spitefully, looking back to Byron. The old man looked sadly between all of us.

"Jamie and Hazel are the only ones the Clave have specifically named in the trial," he said gently. "The rest of you are free to stay."

"Fine with me." I turned on my heels, beginning to head for the doors when Jamie grabbed hold of my arm. The skin of my shoulders began to glow with an angry heat, Jamie tightening his grip and refusing to let go.

"You're not gonna go back to the Mundane world with no place to stay. What are you going to do?"

"Who cares?" I said venomously, Jamie rolling his eyes in exasperation. "That's for me to worry about."

"I'm going with her."

Jamie and I both flickered our eyes to Anastasia as she shrugged one shoulder and smiled softly.

"Stasi.." we both murmured. We shot each other a look.

"No argument," Anastasia said firmly, shaking her head. "I'm not gonna let my best friend roam around the world on her own. Who else is gonna help you with those tragic ass nails?"

I laughed, yanking my arm out of Jamie's grip a little too forcefully.

"If Hazel's going I'm going too!" Taz cheered ferociously, nearly toppling over Stasi in the process. "I've never been outside in the Mundane world, I heard they have killer burgers." he grinned.

"The only reason we're here is because of her," Troy added, shrugging. "So we might as well leave with her too."

"What and leave us behind?" Darren demanded. "There's no way in Hell, me and Aaron are going to!"

"What?!" Aaron cried. "I hate being around Mundanes, they stare at me funny!"

"That's because you look like a lumberjack." Taz laughed. Aaron shot him a look.

"Whether all or two of you leave is completely up to you and your families," Byron said sternly. "But after finding that Lucy was feeding Pluemon information it isn't safe for any of you to be here."

"What, you're trying to protect Idris from _us? _Are you serious?" Jamie argued.

"It is not a matter you should take so lightly, however. Levon wasn't lying when she said the creature would be looking for the girl."

"Families?" Heaven argued. "What family? My dad won't even look at me."

"He's just stressed," Byron insisted. "Your father is a good man under a lot of pressure and-"

"And that's no excuse," Heaven pressed. "I'm going with Jamie."

I knit my eyebrows together and shot the both of them a look, a slow smile spreading over Jamie's face as he saw me. I glared at him, hoping he'd wipe the smug expression off of his face. _You are not jealous, _I thought angrily to myself. _He is no one of importance._

I was still grilling myself over the small incident as I trudged my way back to Lightwood Manor, Stasi close behind me. I pushed the wide wooden doors open with both hands and made my way to the guest room. Stasi threw two duffle bags onto the bed and began stuffing them with clothes.

"Don't mind Jamie," she breathed. "He doesn't mean any harm, I promise."

"I hate that kid," I grumbled. "He's just...he's so..."

"Gorgeous? Talented? Exceedingly charasmatic?"

I gritted my teeth, turning to find Jamie leaning against the doorframe, his dazzling white teeth sparkling as he smiled. He raised a bronze eyebrow at me, the tops of his cheeks pink from the sun.

"Annoying!" I corrected. I began ferociously stuffing my bag with so many items that the dresser drawer tipped over, every undergarment I owned spilling out onto the floor. Stasi whistled awkwardly, grabbing her bag and breezing past me.

"I'll be downstairs." she smirked slyly, waltzing out the door. Jamie bent down and gently plucked a pair of red, lacey underwear from the carpet. He cocked an eyebrow as he held them out to me, his thumb running over the smoothe material.

"My favorite color," he said quietly. I could feel my cheeks flaming as he tried no to laugh.

"Is there a reason you're bothering me?" I growled, grabbing the rest of them off of the ground and shoving them into the bag.

"Yes, actually," he sighed, moving to the drawers. He began pulling out clothing and packing them neatly into my bag as if the action was perfectly normal. "I want to know where you're going."

"I hope you're ready for disappointment," I huffed, moving to the mirror while he continued packing my bag. I ran a brush through my straight strands and threw them up into a ponytail, a few peices flying loose around my face. "I'm not telling you anything."

"I wouldn't be so sure of that if I were you." he said matter-of-factly as I went to his side to help him zip the bag.

"Well you _aren't _me, so it doesn' really matter what you would and wouldn't be sure of."

"You're such a pill."

"And you're a jackass."

"Why do you hate me so much?" he said suddenly, looking down at me. I could feel his breath wash over my face, his gold-green eyes narrowed in a mixture of frustration and confusion as he watched me. I forgot how to breathe for a moment.

"I..."

"Well?" he pressed, raising an eyebrow and grinning. He was well aware of how close his body was to mine, I was sure of it, and the angrier I got, the warmer my skin grew.

"Well what does it matter?" I shot out quickly, Jamie moving backwards as if I'd startled him.

"Why wouldn't it?"

"Because I don't know you!" Jamie's face fell, and he began shakin his head. "I have never in my life met you before and all the sudden I wake up half-naked in your home country? And you're down my throat all the time wanting to know where I am or what I'm doing or who I'm with and I just don't know you!"

"Hazel, I-"

"Stop!" I argued. "We need to make an agreement right now that I'm not yours to babysit and that you're not mine to have to deal with. Maybe if you quit being such a freak of nature, _then _we can be friends. Deal?"

Jamie pondered this for a moment, composing himself and regaining a mask of indifference as he shrugged and crossed his arms.

"Deal." he said flatly. I grabbed my bag from the bed and began heading out the door.

"Good. I'll see you when I see you."

"Which will be within the next few minutes." Jamie called as I walked out the door.

"Why do you say tha-" I paused, my toes itching with irritation as I saw Jamie's black bags piled in the hallway.

"Because like I said, I'm coming with you."

I turned to him, a smirk slowly spreading across his pretty face.

"Sorry Princess," he grinned. "You're not gonna get rid of me that easily."

"Sure," I mumbled, raising an eyebrow as I folded my arms. "We'll see about that."


	2. Old Friends

**Snow Patrol-Shut Your Eyes**

**Thom York- Hearing Damage**

* * *

Please tell me this is a joke." Jamie grumbled, staring up at the large glass building ten feet away. I grinned, watching the sea of students filter around the six of us, the wind whipping my hair across my neck.

"Afraid not, Honeybun," I chided. "Welcome to Pinewood East High School."

"I think I'm gonna vomit," Aaron whined behind me. I stared up at the six-foot-four softie and raised an eyebrow at him. He covered his mouth. "Yep, definitely gonna vomit."

"He hates crowds," Stasi explained as he heaved into the bushes. "Which is really weird, because crowds shouldn't really trigger a psychological response the way they do with a lot of people. You'd think some would get excited about being around their own kind and their brains would somehow create the affiliation between themselves and another creature as a good thing because-"

"There is absolutely no way you're going to fit in if you don't learn to shut up." Darren fired, raising his hands in defense when Anastasia whipped around to shoot him a look.

"Let's not be bitter Betties ladies and gentleman," I chided, leading the way into the building. The moment the black doors opened my ears were filled with the rush of the crowd. "No one ever said you had to come with me."

"High school," Jamie said flatly, staying close to me. "Of all freaking places, you decided to go _back _to the one people spend four years trying to escape from?"

"The last thing I remember was being a senior," I called over the noise. "I never got to graduate."

"Who cares?" Darren cried, glaring so fiercely at a boy who bumped into him that the kid nearly peed himself. "Shadowhunters get the best schooling in the world." He plucked an unfinished orange juice out of the hands of a freshman and dared him to ask for it back as we continued walking.

"I agreed to _staying _at the Institute, not spending every moment of my life there." I fired back, grinning over my shoulder at him. Darren rolled his eyes and continued eye-murdering the other students.

"I just think you could've picked a better place to go." Jamie grumbled. I whirled on him.

"I didn't ask what you think," I said evenly, staring him in the eye. "I didn't ask you to come, I didn't ask you to follow me, I didn't ask you to come back."

"Why not?" he grinned, cocking an eyebrow lazily. I narrowed my eyes at him.

"Every girl on this planet may seem to think that you're the most charming male specimen to ever walk the face of this planet, but I'm not going to fall for it. You're annoying, and suffocating, and just because you're cute doesn't mean everyone has to listen to you."

"You think I'm cute?" he smiled wider, biting down on his lip. I huffed and started making my way back down the hallways.

"Good God, will you look at that?" Stasi whistled.

I followed the line of her sight into the cafeteria, where a group of football players lounged about the tables, flashing their dazzling smiles, their muscles shifting underneath their heavy jackets.

"I get the one with the blonde hair." she whispered quickly, watching as he pulled a chair out from underneath one of his friends. Jamie rolled his eyes.

"You can have him," I agreed. "Never been a one for blondes. If any, I like that one." I nodded to a boy with black hair and bright blue eyes, his small nose wrinkling slightly as he laughed.

"They all look like idiots." Jamie growled, crossing his arms.

"Maybe," I said gently, raising an eyebrow as a small smile spread across my face. "That doesn't mean they won't be good in bed."

Darren spit his orange juice out on the floor mid-drink, trying not to laugh as Aaron's mouth popped open. Anastasia looped her arm in mine as Jamie leaned against the wall, a mixture of amusement and irritation playing on his expression.

It took all of two weeks for Anastasia to be deemed as the prettiest girl in the school. There was a clique who didn't approve of that, of course, four girls all with shining hair and dazzling white smiles that were extremely disgruntled when she waved off their advances of joining the group. It was difficult not to be amused, and I tried to remember what it had been like at my old school. I'm sure there had been a head clique, but was I part of it? Did I plan my outfits every day and ensure that my nails were always done? Did I refuse to leave the house on days when my hair didn't cooperate? If it wasn't the case then, it was the case now.

The only, _and I mean only_, thing you need to become popular is this: A refusal to give a fuck. Being pretty is easy. If there's anything you take from this next little rant, let it be this: _You are always pretty enough. Everything else just has to do with whether or not you believe it._ There are some of us who can simply roll out of bed, throw our hair into some sort of mishapen style, add a little mascara, and then be on our merry way. If you're one of those girls, then I hate you. If not, join the club. In all honesty, I wasn't sure if I was pretty enough without makeup. I knew eventually, someday, someone would think so- but until that day, I was hellbent on ensuring that I looked good.

Having Anastasia as a best friend helped in more ways than one. Not only were my nails always done, but so were my toes. This was coming from me, a girl who had previously for most of her life refused to wear shoes unless absolutely necessary (A.K.A my toes usually looked awful). My hair was no longer an issue. Anastasia had bribed some warlock she knew into giving us a potion for ridiculously shiny, strong hair, and it worked like a miracle.

There was a newfound confidence in the pit of my soul that had been there since the day I'd woken up on the altar. It wasn't that I'd been completely and utterly insecure before- I couldn't really remember what I'd felt about the way I looked before that- but now it was like the confidence was so strong that I _couldn't _ignore it, and when you can't ignore it, neither can anyone else.

I found pleasure in the way boys stared at us at this new school. I found pleasure in the rumors that spread about us, people wondering where we'd come from and how we were related and why we lived in the same place. The way they stared as we made our way down the hallways, the way the watched us tap our pencils in class. The little things they did, "accidentally" bumping into us, talking about a party just loud enough so we could hear it, celebrating their fifteenth consecutive win and telling us it was "tradition" for them to take someone new to the celebration. It was nice knowing that people's minds were so filled with thoughts of me they couldn't contain themselves.

Jamie wasn't as pleased as I was. If I had a dollar for every time he'd told me I should spend as much time training as I did "seasoning myself like a wad of meat for the hungry pack of dogs at that Hellhole", I'd be rich.

"Can you at least stop straightening it?" he whined, pulling a strand of my hair through his fingers as he sat down at our lunch table. Anastasia rolled her eyes as I swatted him away from me.

"No! It looks fine."

"It smells dead."

"Then breathe through your mouth." I countered, smiling in irritation as Jamie pursing his lips in irritation.

"Don't worry," Darren said with a mouthful. "Jamie's just mad cause the entire football team wants to plow you."

"Oh shut up," Stasi chided, throwing her muffin at his forehead. "There will be no plowing."

"For now." I smirked, sipping my water casually as Jamie began stabbing at his lasagna ferociously.

"Look at him," Darren continued. "Taking his anger out on his poor lunch."

"I'll be taking it out on you if you don't shut up." Jamie warned lowly, pointing the utensil. Darren raised is eyebrows, stuffing his face with Stasi's crumbling muffin.

"Nine o'clock." Stasi nudged me, her dark eyes flickering over my shoulder. I turned, Darren and Jamie still waving their forks at each other behind me.

The first thing I saw was his sandy blonde hair sweeping lightly across his forehead. The boy's neon blue eyes flickered up to me instantly, Anastasia's soda can hitting the table as it slipped from her hands, Aaron crying out loudly that she'd ruined his favorite sweater.

"Cas," I breathed, a smile spreading across his face. I nearly fell over myself getting out of my seat, pushing past a few wandering students as I made my way to him. "Hey!" I called out, grinning as he slid his arms easily around my waist. It was like ice had shot through every vein in my body the moment he touched me, goosebumps rising all along my arms as he held me. It felt natural, not at all forced or strange or wrong. It felt _good_, unusually good. It was the kindof good you felt from having sex, the kind of goosebumps you get when you're tanning and the sun presses against your skin.

My eyes went wide, the entire room changing around me into a blurry mess of neon lights and loud music. Why did I feel like I'd been here before? I sucked in a deep breath, the cafeteria returning around me.

"What the Hell are you doing here?" I asked quietly, pulling back slightly. The football players near us had stopped in their shouting and fussing to stare.

"Someone tried to burn down my old school," Cas laughed, as if the statement were funny. His long, thin nose twitched slightly as he grinned at me. "I had to find a new place to go. It was pretty bad," he pulled up a shirtsleeve, a small crescent burn marking his forearm just at the cut of his inner elbow. "Someone should learn to be more careful."

"Someone?" I asked, the smile leaving his face. "You know who did it? What happened?"

Casper's face fell, slight shadows creeping under his high cheekbones as he studied my face. I could feel my eyebrows knit upwards in confusion.

"You don't remember," Cas whispered, staring. "You don't remember anything."

"No I do!" I assured him, Anastasia coming to our side, followed by a very angry Jamie. "I remember the fire, I remember someone starting it and...there was...I mean..." The world seemed to grow hazy as my gaze lingered away from him and into memory, my arms slipping from his grip as I tried to remember. "There was a lot of running..."

"That's enough," Jamie snapped, pulling me from my trance. I looked back at Cas, who was narrowing his eyes at him. "Bell's about to ring. Hazel needs to go to her next class."

"You're not allowed to tell me what I need!" I retorted, shooting him a look. Jamie's eyes were locked on Cas'.

If only looks could kill.

"Do you two know each other?" Aaron asked, crossing his arms.

"We've never met formally," Jamie said flatly, not moving. "But I'm pretty sure I know who he is."

"Good," Cas said coldly, the brightness leaving his eyes. "Then there's no need for introductions."

"How do _they_ know each other?" Darren asked, watching Casper and I.

"There was this party-"

"We kissed," Cas interrupted me, Jamie's jaw clenching tightly.

"Ooooo" Aaron instigated quietly, flickering his eyes to was a fire in his eyes that I'd never seen before, the anger nearly radiating off of his skin. I suddenly felt very, very uneasy, a thickness growing in my throat.

"A few times, to be exact."

Jamie nearly toppled me over closing the distance between himself and the newcomer, Cas towering over him a good six inches although it didn't seem to bother him at all.

"You have know idea how much has changed since your last run in," Jamie growled evenly. "So let me give you a clue: The best thing you could possibly do for the both of you is to stay away."

"Awe," Cas chided, grinning slightly. "Afraid of a little competition?"

"You'd have to be good-looking for this to count as competition and let's be honest, it just wouldn't be a fair fight."

"For you."

"I know exactly what you are." Anastasia hissed, Cas' eyes flickering to her for a moment. Exactly what he was? What was he? _Besides really fucking hot, _I thought idly to myself. Jamie kept his locked on the boys face, daring him to make a move.

"Then it should be understood that I'm no threat to her," Cas said easily. "As if you could keep her away anyways."

"I hate to break it to you," Jamie smirked. "But she hates blondes."

"Can we chill the fuck out please?" I cut in, Aaron tugging lightly on Jamie's arm as the principal began making his way towards us.

"Is there a problem here boys?" he asked calmly, raising an eyebrow.

"I sure hope not sir," Jamie answered politely, keeping his eyes on Cas' face as he scooped his bookbag off of the ground. "I sure hope not."

"Good. Then there's no excuse for the lot of you being late to class. On your way."

"Yeah, Hazel," Jamie said sternly. I looked at him, Anastasia looping her arm in mine as the boy watched intently with his gold-green eyes. I wasn't usually one to take orders from anyone, but the look on Jamie's face was screaming that I'd be in trouble later, and the last thing I wanted was for Cas to see me screaming at this idiot. "On your way."

Stasi led me across the cafeteria as I glanced over my shoulder once more at Casper, his friends circling around him and asking millions of questions in hushed whispers as we widened the distance between ourselves. I followed Anastasia down the hall, not even glancing at the others as they split up in the corridors, one statement Stasi had made blazing like a torch in the black night sky in the back of my mind:

_I know exactly what you are._


	3. Eavesdropping, Part 2

"A cheerleader? Seriously?" I bent down and plucked the silvery, glitter-strewn pom-pom that had lain on the floor of Stasi's massive closet, and raised an eyebrow at her.

"What?" she asked defensively, turning around in her rollychair. It was the first time in nearly an hour that she'd turned away from the vanity, a tube of mascara waiting patiently in her left hand. "I thought it would be fun."

"Fun," I mimicked flatly, shuffling through the rest of her clothes. "Or an easy way to get into Mark Ceaser's pants?"

Stasi popped her mouth open to argue before tightening her lips into a thin line, trying not to smile.

"Busted." I chimed, grinning at her.

"Whatever," she waved me away, rolling her eyes as she carelessly tossed the mascara behind her, moving on to eyeliner. "He's hot, and I wanna bang him."

"Why so intense?"

"Because you may or may not have forgotten, but I just got over a _really _bad breakup, and Cosmopolitan says that you're supposed to try to forget about the guy as quickly as possible."

My eyebrows knit together, a dull pain thudding in the back of my head as the room blurred slightly, Anastasia's voice ringing in my ears. She was crying, her extensions hanging loose from her scalp as her left eye began to swell shut. There were two blonde boys wrestling in the corner, one turning to face me.

"Get her out of here," he ordered sternly. "I'll take care of him."

"Cas." I whispered, my eyes wide as the room shifted back to reality.

"What was that?" Stasi asked, pausing as the deadly sharp pencil hovered over her waterline. I shook my head, feeling as though I was going to be sick although I tried to hide the fact.

"Nothing," I murmured, letting myself fall backwards onto her ridiculously fluffy pink comforter. "Just a headache."

"There's Aspirin in the bathroom if you want it. Did you know Aspirin is just a brand name? In the Mundane world they have about fifty different medications under different names but when it all comes down to it they're all basically the sa-whatever, you don't want to hear about that. What was I saying? Right. Anyways, Cosmo says you have to get over him ASAP, and you know what they say right?"

"That it's a miracle you've yet to literally talk someone's ear off?" I grumbled, rubbing my forehead and shutting my eyes.

"_No_," Stasi retorted with false patience, rummaging through her heavy makeup kit. "That the best way to get over someone is to get _under _someone else."

"Yeah, well, be careful. If you're underneath him it'll be easier for him to choke you when you start talking too much."

"God you sound like Jamie." Stasi grumbled. I shot her a look, though I doubt she'd even seen it.

"Fuck Jamie." Aaron grumbled, the large mattress lifting from the floor as he tried to wiggle from underneath it.

"Holy shit." I breathed, clinging to the side of the bed as he turned it to its side, standing before letting it hit the ground again.

"AARON!" Stasi screamed, grabbing a heavy ceramic kitten from atop her dresser and flinging it at him. Aaron clamored around, fumbling with the small fake animal before setting it gently on one of her many shoe racks.

"Careful," he whined. "That's a collectable."

"How the Hell did you even fit under there?" Stasi cried, my head thrumming again with the familiarity of the scene. I pinched the bridge of my nose, rubbing my eyes with the heel of my palms.

"You okay?" Aaron asked, dodging a stiletto.

"What about Jamie?" I asked, trying to change the subject.

"Oh, yeah. Fuck him," he grumbled, waving a bandaged hand in the air. I raised an eyebrow at him, trying not to smile. "He beat me up in the Training Room."

"As if that's news." Stasi drawled, already bored with the one subject not including her.

"All I'm saying is that Hazel hating Jamie equals Jamie hating the world, ya know?"

"Why can't he just leave me alone?" I groaned.

"It's not as easy as it sounds, kiddo."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because whether you believe it or not, Jamie _does _have a right to know you."

"Elaborate." I grumbled, staring at him.

"Let's try to keep this on a need to know basis, alright?" Stasi stared at Aaron warningly, only furthering my confusion.

"Well Jamie's...uhm..."

"You were sick," Anastasia said with exasperation, as if it had been pent-up on her conscious for days. "Really sick, before you woke up on the altar. We think it's why you can't remember anything. Make sense?"

"I mean...yeah, I guess. Yeah it makes sense." I murmured, mulling the idea over.

"Okay, and when you were sick, the only thing that could help you was a blood sacrifice."

"You don't mean to tell me that he tried to give it to me?" I laughed. "A blood sacrifice would have killed him."

"Not him," Aaron said quietly. "His mom."

It didn't seem so funny anymore.

I could feel my expression falling as the pit of my stomach grew heavy, the room blurring again. I looked down at a pale, creamy arm, the hand gripped tightly in my own as little black trails of ink seeped from my skin. The image shimmered for a few seconds before leaving me in Stasi's bedroom once more. My friends watched with concerned faces as I pinched the bridge of my nose.

"I feel like such a jackass." I murmured, wincing as if I'd been hit.

"Don't. It's not fair to expect you to remember these things. I just think...you know if you were nicer he would feel better. It's why he's so worried all the time. He just wants to make sure his Mom didn't die for no reason."

"Right, cause that's not a shit ton of pressure to put on someone. I didn't ask her to help me, did I? What do I owe this kid, a lifetime of slavery? God, I'm so fucked."

"Jamie's not like that," Stasi laughed, turning back to her mirror. "At least not with you."

"Though you sure as Hell bring out the worst in him." Aaron mumbled.

"Oh stop being such a baby."

"Okay!" Aaron shouted defensively, plopping down on the bed next to me. "I'm not the best fighter, but it's been different lately! We're not even learning anything anymore, we're just getting our asses kicked!"

"We're?"

"Yeah, basically everyone except Heaven. She's the only one he won't pummel into mush, but even then he's not taking it easy on her."

"Why her?" I shot quickly, an unintentional irritation lingering in my tone. Aaron raised an eyebrow at me and grinned.

"Don't worry, Hothead. Heaven's gay."

"Not that she was jealous or anything." Stasi smirked sarcastically.

"Whatever." I grumbled, laying back down into the fluff.

"You know...you could be a _little _nicer," Aaron started sheepishly, staring down at his beefy hand. "Maybe then Jamie would chill out a bit."

"What's his problem?" I snapped, pinching the bridge of my nose again as I closed my eyes.

"_His?_"

I sat up in the sheets, Jamie leaning against the door frame with an agitated look on his face. I watched him with heavy eyes, the headache growing stronger as I eyed the small shoebox in his hands.

"What the Hell is that?"

"Answer my question first."

"Fine," I snapped, my hair washing over my shoulder as I propped myself up on one elbow. Stasi rolled around to face us, this subject too good to ignore. "Why are you beating all of my friends up?"

"First of all, they're my friends too-"

"We are?" Aaron asked honestly, looking up with wide eyes. I almost felt bad for him then, he way his eyes sparkled lightly with genuine hope. It seemed like Aaron had never had a legitimate friend in his entire life. Jamie looked somewhat dumbstruck, his eyebrows raising for a moment before knitting together in anger.

"When have I ever acted like we weren't?" he snapped, his fingers denting the cardboard sides of his box. "There's never been a time where I haven't tried to protect you or help you or-you know what, forget it," he turned his attention back to me. "Secondly, maybe if I wasn't so God-damned irritated all the time I wouldn't have to be so harsh. You give what you get, you're a product of your environment, get the gist?"

"I'm so not in the mood to argue with you right now!" I cried, throwing my hands up into the air and laying back down.

"You're not in the mood for anything that has to do with me lately." Jamie grumbled, tossing the box onto the bed with a light thud. "It's a present."

"What if I don't want it?" I fired spitefully, hoping to hurt him as he swiftly walked out the door.

"Then kill it," he called back. "One less innocent creature that has to put up with your bullshit."

Fury rose in the pit of my stomach, one of the bulbs in Stasi's vanity exploding as I sat up furiously in the bed sheets, glaring at the space in the doorway. Aaron screamed like a child, slipping off of the bed and pulling the comforter along with him. The box tumbled to the ground as I hopped on one leg to avoid crashing to the floor as well, the lid popping off. A small black ball of fur rolled across the carpet and into Anastasia's shoe rack, two little ears unfurling as it came to a stop.

The anger seemed to drain from my body, a pair of wide green eyes meeting mine as I knelt to the ground. I scooped the small kitten into my hands, the animal meowing fearfully as I raised it to my face, studying it. The headache was in near full-force migraine mode at this point, the blood rushing in my ears.

"I've seen him before," I murmured numbly, my lips dragging behind the words heavily. "I saw...seen him.."

I studied the small cat for what felt like days before Aaron pulled him out of my hands with a look of concern, exchanging looks with Stasi.

"You don't...remember where you've seen him, do you?" Aaron asked tentatively, biting the inside of his cheek as Stasi shot him a look. I shook my head slowly, the room blurring and clearing and blurring and clearing repeatedly before I finally snapped out of my trance by the sound of crunching glass.

"Shit." Stasi muttered, pulling a shard of broken lightbulb from her shoe.

"Sorry," I breathed quickly, plucking up the pieces of glass as quickly as I could. "Sorry."

"S'okay," Stasi said sweetly, bending down to help. "I think that whole rebirth thing sorta super-charged your fire."

"Fire?" I asked, Stasi knitting her eyebrows at me. "I was apologizing for blanking out..."

"I just...I mean when you got angry I thought..."

"You're not actually trying to blame me for a busted lightbulb are you?" I laughed, Stasi and Aaron smiling nervously. "I'd have to have like superpowers or something."

"Right," Aaron murmured, the cat nibbling on his fingers. "Superpowers."


	4. Honest

***Jamie POV***

* * *

"You serious?" I asked, sprawling across Heaven's golden sheets. The entire room was a massive ball of light, every corner shimmering as the setting sun pulled through the windows. Her crossbow winked at me from atop the dresser.

"Make fun of me, and I'll shoot you." she glowered, trying to wriggle herself into the skin-tight black dress.

"I'm not making fun, I'm not making fun...as if you could actually hit me anyways."

"Yeah okay," she smirked, pulling up the zipper. "Even _I_ know you're not fast enough to dodge a full-on arrow."

"It's a bet," I grinned, stretching. "As soon as I take a nap." I pulled my T-shirt over my head.

"You're such a lazy bum." Heaven grumbled, shaking her head at me as she began examining herself in the mirror.

"Am not."

"You know, being an even bigger asshole than usual isn't going to make you feel better about Hazel."

"Ouch," I grumbled. "Low blow."

"Just saying. I know you're torn up about this whole she-doesn't-remember-me thing, and I can't even imagine how hard it is for you, but at least she's here, right? At least she's not gone."

_Better gone than a traitor,_ I thought spitefully. I bit my tongue, knowing if the words had come out Heaven would be hurt. But part of me wanted to hurt her. Part of me was beyond irritated with Hazel and everything that had to do with her.

"Maybe not remembering is better for her in the long run," Heaven continued, her long, light-brown hair dusting against her waist. "Maybe it's easier on her mind. Bringing all that back to her would only mean bringing back all that pain."

"Why are you wearing that thing anyways? I've never seen you wear a dress in my life." I asked, changing the subject.

"Leave me alone, okay?"

"I'm not making fun of you, Heav, I swear. I genuinely want to know why you're pulling on that plastic bag."

"Is it ugly?" she asked worriedly, her eyes wide as she quit staring at herself and turned to me.

"You're not ugly."

"But the dress-"

"Dresses are stupid on you because they're _not _you. If you had the choice, you wouldn't be putting it on-which means you're putting it on to impress someone else. _That's _ugly."

"Jamie, the motivational speaker."

"You never answered my question."

"There's this party on Friday-"

"Since when are you into parties?" I laughed, raising an eyebrow at her. Heaven rolled her eyes at me.

"I'm not," she said quickly. "But Anastasia let it slip that she and Hazel were going and you know we can't trust them on their own so as the oldest I feel like it's my job to make sure they don't do anything stupid or illegal and get themselves caught."

"Cool," I said flatly, waving my hand at her clothes. "Now tell me why you have to go to the party in _that."_

Heaven pursed her lips for a moment before sinking into the chair at her white desk and laying her face in her hands.

"I miss Lucy. And if I go to this party I'm hoping I'll find someone who will help me NOT miss her. Get it?" she mumbled, peeking up at me.

"Ahh," I sighed. "And the truth comes out." There was a heavy silence in the air, partly because neither of us wanted to bring up the fact that there was yet another reason about why Lucy and Heaven couldn't be together. No one wanted to state that reason was because Lucy was a traitor, either.

"You'll be okay, Heav." I murmured gently, giving her a small half smile.

"You think everything will be okay," She retorted in annoyance. "You don't feel anything."

"Don't I?"

"You're different from us, Jamie. You're only moping over Hazel because you're choosing to. The rest of us don't have a choice."

"You might have made the same decision if you were in my place."

"Are you stupid? There's no way in Hell I'd _choose _to feel like there's a hole being punched into my chest."

"It's better than feeling nothing." I said quietly, staring at my feet as I propped myself up on the bed. The room was silent again for a moment.

There was a lot of silence between Heaven and I. It had always been like that. Around other people there was usually an incessant need for me to have witty comebacks and insults at the ready, but Heaven never gave me anything to insult. She was one of the few honest, raw people out of the hundred I'd known. It was sort of sick in a sense, because even she was hiding from he world. It seemed like these days you couldn't be a Shadowhunter without keeping secrets.

"When did our kind stop being honest with each other?" I asked bluntly, my voice louder now that the subject had strayed from me. Heaven lifted her chin up, raising her eyebrows.

"What do you mean?" she asked, tugging at her zipper again.

"You'd think that after the Second Uprising people would think twice before keeping secrets but it seems like that's all we do anymore. No one has an honest agenda. We're supposed to be a team."

"There's no such thing as teams anymore, J. I think that was proven when Luce turned out to be a traitor." she answered quietly.

"How are we supposed to trust anybody?"

"We can't."

There was a small rap at the door, Heaven waving for me to get up and answer it.

"You're such a lazy bum." I mocked, grinning at her as she rolled her eyes. I pulled myself off of her sun-kissed bed, sighing as I made my way to the white door. Heaven's black carpet crunched lightly underneath my toes.

"Seriously?" I asked for the second time that day, tapping a finger in the black wooden door where 'Lucy' was carved into small, barely readable letters. Heaven made a face and threatened to shoot me again as I opened the door, a pair of light brown eyes meeting mine.

"Uhm..." Hazel's eyes flickered from me, to the half-naked Heaven who sat at her desk still tugging furiously at her zipper.

"It's what it looks-"

"It's fine." Hazel said flatly, dropping the small black kitten into my hands.

"I thought I told you to kill it if you didn't want it."

"I don't want to kill it, Stasi does."

"So...you want _me _to kill it for you?"

"No," she sighed in exasperation, leaning against the door frame for a moment. "I want you to hide it. It peed all over Stasi's carpet and she's coming for its throat."

Hazel shoved off of the door frame, casting one more irritated glare in Heaven's direction before moving down the hallway.

"Wait," I called after her, following foolishly. "You're giving me YOUR cat, that's YOUR responsibility, to hide from YOUR friend."

"Technically it's _your_ cat," Hazel murmured nonchalantly. "You had it before I did."

"And I gave it to _you_," I retorted, following her as Yoda mewed in my hands. "So it's yours."

"Why'd you get me a cat?" she asked suddenly, crossing her arms. I lifted the kitten to my shoulders, letting it crawl about.

"It was already yours. Technically I was only giving it back."

"Since when?"

"Since last year."

"Before I got sick?" Hazel's eyes were less guarded now, honest curiosity lingering in them. I knit my eyebrows together.

"Sick? Before you got kidna-"

"HEY!" Aaron cheered suddenly, whipping around the corner. We both turned and sighed in irritation, shooting each other looks at the duality of our movements. "WOW, JAMIE, HAZEL, HOW NICE TO SEE YOU AROUND THESE PARTS."

"Aaron?"

"YEAH?"

"We're in a hallway. You see everyone around these parts." Hazel said flatly, the annoyance clear in her voice. I tried not to laugh as Aaron squinted his eyes at her.

"Okay Ms. Grumpy, I was just trying to find you so I could let you know that Cas called."

"Cas called?" Hazel asked, suddenly excited. I crossed my arms in irritation. "Why did Cas call?"

"Yeah Aaron, why _did _Cas call?" I asked in false cheer. Aaron pursed his lips.

"That would be a personal matter." He said simply.

"I'm gonna personally shove my foot up your ass if you don't te-"

"Do you see what I'm talking about?" Aaron cried to Hazel, waving his arms at me. "He's gone loco!"

"I am not crazy-"

"Just slightly demented." Hazel offered, earning herself a dirty look.

"You two obviously have a lot to catching up to do," Aaron said quickly, trying to dig himself out of the dog house. He plucked Yoda off of my shoulders. "I'm just gonna take our friend here and leave you two to your friendly stroll."

"This is not a friendly stroll!" Hazel called, watching as he practically sprinted down the hall. "What?" she snapped, finding me watching her. I shrugged, pursing my lips for a moment.

"I want to know why you hate me."

"You know why I hate you." She said simply, her feet moving quickly again. I tugged on her elbow, raising an eyebrow as she slowly turned. Hazel's face was a mixture of amusement and annoyance.

"You're getting a real kick out of me chasing you like dog aren't you?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about." she said innocently. I made a mental note of the fact that she had yet to pull her arm out of my hand.

"Why'd you come find me?"

"Because I needed to give your cat back."

"Really?"

"Yes, really."

"Then why did you let Aaron take it? As I recall he was already in the room with you and Stasi. If it was so important that I had it why didn't you object?"

"Because I don't care that much about a dumb cat."

"You care enough to keep it safe."

"I just didn't want to see it get hurt, that's all. It's inhumane," she teased, staring up at me with amused eyes. "What she'd do to that cat is dangerous."

"Wanna know what else is dangerous?"

"What?"

"What I'd do to you."

It was like a spark went off in the back of Hazel's eyes, the color of them brightening to a near golden color for a moment as the heat rushed to her cheeks, staining them scarlet. The corners of her mouth twitched as she tried to hide a smile before biting her lip. Suddenly, she turned on her heels and began to walk again, peering over her shoulder only once to see if I was following.

"I don't think you know what you're getting into." She warned playfully.

"Tell me, then."

"A mess."

"You are not a mess." I stated matter-of-factly, following as she made her way into the courtyard. The buds on the cherry blossom trees had just begun to sprout with the spring weather, many of the branches still bare. I sat next to Hazel on one of the stone benches, eying her as she stared up at the stone angel in the center of the fountain.

"You don't know what I am." she said simply, still staring.

"You keep telling me that."

"Because it's true."

"I don't believe that." I said quickly, Hazel finally turning to meet my eyes. She studied my face for a moment as though she were trying to tell if I was lying.

"They said that you knew me," she murmured, looking away. "Before I got sick."

"I did."

"Not anymore. Whoever that girl was doesn't exist anymore."

"How can you say that when you don't even remember who she was?"

"I don't have to remember to know. You think I don't notice?" There was an edge to her tone now, a defensive snap in her voice. "Everytime I open my mouth people seem surprised at what comes out, like they weren't expecting it from me."

"No one has ever in their life known what to expect from you." I laughed. Hazel didn't smile, her face set into a sober mask.

"Everything I do, everything I say-"

"It was all there before," I argued again, pressing the issue. "The only difference between you then and you now is that now you're not hiding who you really are. You've always been outspoken, you've always been pretty, you've always been a brat-"

"I'm not a brat." she argued quickly.

"Yeah, okay."

"You think I'm pretty?"

"Only if you think I'm pretty too."

"You have a terrible way with words."

"And you have terrible shoes."

"What?" she cried, looking down at her feet. "They're red! You said red was your favorite color!"

"Do you mean to tell me you got them specifically because you knew I'd approve?"

"God no!" she shot, laughing at the idea. "I'm just saying I'm surprised you have an issue with them. You said red was-"

"I lied." I laughed, shrugging.

"You don't like red?"

"It's not that I don't like it...it's just not my favorite."

"What's your favorite, then?"

"The color your eyes used to be," I smiled gently. "Like a greenish light brown."

Hazel's cheeks turned red again and she quickly looked back to the fountain, the shimmering water casting light across her face. I laughed to myself for a moment.

"I'll leave you alone," I said softly. "On one condition."

"What?" she asked quietly, my chest thudding. It was the first time in weeks that she'd been intently listening, all of her attention on me.

"Let me take you somewhere."

"Take me somewhere?" she scoffed skeptically. I sighed, rolling my eyes at her and dropping her hand.

"Yes, take you somewhere. There's something I want you to see."

"Fine. Where are we going?"

"Not now," I grinned, her face falling as she began to pout. "You have to wait a few days."

"A few days?!" She cried.

"Seven, to be exact."

"So this means I have to deal with your nonsense for another week?"

"You'll live."

"Will I?"

"Hopefully."

"This sucks," she grimaced. "You got me all excited for nothing."

"I excite you?" I smirked, Hazel rolling her eyes at me. For a moment, it looked like she was about to spout some witty retort, before she stood and brushed past me, her fingertips slipping across my bare chest.

"Only a little." she murmured. I watched her saunter down the hallway, partially dumbstruck.

Hazel Roberts was going to be the death of me.


	5. Hooky

***Hazel POV***

* * *

I flung the bathroom door open and glared at Jamie as he leaned lazily against the frame, raising an eyebrow at me.

"It's called 'getting ready'," Stasi retorted, frisking past him with her glittering backpack in hand. "Don't be such a grandpa."

"Getting ready?" Jamie asked, following us as Aaron swung the keys to his Jeep while whistling. "I've never had to get ready in my entire life."

"Because you have no friends and nowhere to be besides the Training Room?" Darren offered, Jamie smirking in reply.

"No," he grinned. "Because getting ready is for people who aren't blessed enough to simply wake up as beautiful as I."

"Jamie Lightwood," I called sarcastically. "Ever so humble."

Jamie laughed behind me, the sound tickling at the back of my mind as I made my way to the passenger side of Aaron's Wrangler.

"Not so fast sweetheart," Darren sighed, closing the door as I moved to open it. "I always ride shotgun."

"If you don't move out of my way, you're going to be riding with a gun up your a-"

"Easy, easy," Jamie scolded playfully, walking around the side of the Institute and disappearing behind the black iron gate for a few moments. "Such language isn't appropriate for a lady. Besides," he smiled, wheeling something out onto the sidewalk and watching me. "Hazel doesn't want to ride in Aaron's silly old Jeep."

"I don't?" I asked warily, Aaron whining in the background that his Jeep was just fine.

"Nope," Jamie replied matter-of-factly. He pulled the tarp away with one swift motion, revealing a shiny, sparkling black sports bike. "She wants to ride with me."

My mouth popped open immediately, Jamie laughing at my expression as everyone behind us exchanged amused glances.

"This is yours?" I breathed, brushing my fingers lightly over the seat.

"Stole it when I was fifteen," Jamie smiled proudly, mounting the beast. "It's a Susuki GSXR 600. It's near impossible to wreck."

"How?"

"Mom drew a rune into the side paneling the day I brought it home." his face fell slightly at the mention of his parents and the cold, sinking feeling came back into my stomach. Jamie bit his lip, watching for my reaction.

"It's gorgeous." I murmured, showing clear impression.

"Only because I'm on it."

"Is it fast?" I asked quietly, raising an eyebrow. A smile tugged at the corners of Jamie's mouth as his gold-green eyes flashed with mischief.

"You'll never know if you don't get on."

I straddled the bike immediately, not hesitating to slip my arms around his torso, the skin of his stomach warming my fingers through his shirt. Jamie revved the engine, excitement flaring through me like a firecracker, and as I threw my head back in a fit of laughter, one of the cherry blossom trees in front of the Institute caught fire. Everyone halted immediately, my face falling quickly as I watched the small petals burn to the ground. Jamie shifted uncomfortably for a moment before regaining his composure as Aaron screamed, throwing mass amounts of ice and water at the tree as if it would help it.

"I PLANTED THIS ONE ALL BY MYSELF," he screeched, wheeling out the hose as Darren tried to calm him down. "IT'S THE ONLY ONE THAT DIDN'T DIE AFTER THREE DAYS."

"Not everybody's born with a green thumb, Buddy." Darren said gently, trying to help put out the twigs. Jamie turned his head to the side, casting me a sideways glance.

"You alright HotHead?" he asked with a smirk. I rolled my eyes, shifting again on the bike as he took off into the street.

My hair whipped wildly around my face as Jamie sped through the streets, the bike taking us faster than I'd ever been in my entire life. I let my eyes wander about the world as it streaked past me, expressions and bystanders and cars and stop lights becoming nothing but streaks of messy, misplaced paint on a canvas. I let myself feed off the energy of those around us, analyzing every expression I could catch in the sea of messy faces. The anger, the excitement, the sleepy haze that had yet to wear off- I soaked every feeling in, each making me feel more alive than the last. Burying my face in the back of Jamie's leather jacket, I realized that he smelled like pine. It was a raw smell, the kind you couldn't get out of a bottle. It was the kind of smell people carry with them naturally, on their clothes, on their skin, _in their bed sheets._ My mind shifted to a much dirtier, intimate place as Jamie slowed at a stoplight. Only after a few minutes did I realize he was saying my name.

"Hazel?"

"Oh, what? Sorry. What'd you say?"

"You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm perfect. Why?"

"How do you feel about skipping school?" Jamie asked slyly, chewing lightly on the inside of his cheek.

"Are you a bad influence on everyone you come in contact with or it just _my _innocence you're after?"

"Hazel..."

"No witty retort?"

"It's not that."

"What is it then."

"I took your innocence long before I came up with the idea of skipping school. I think that ship has sailed." he said with a grin.

"Not that I remember!" I snapped back in defense.

"Is that an open invitation to go after it again?"

"Where are we going if we're not going to school?" I asked, quickly changing the subject.

"I want you to meet someone."

"It's not your girlfriend is it?"

"Even if I had one, I'd never allow you two in the same room."

"Why not?!"

"I wouldn't want to make her feel bad," he laughed, my cheeks turning scarlet. Jamie revved the engine again and we were off at a far slower pace. "Besides, I'm saving myself." he called over the wind.

"For who?"

"A certain someone."

"That poor girl," I teased in his ear. "I can't imagine there's much left else to save."

Jamie laughed to himself, the wind and the roar of the engine far too much for me to handle now that the talking had stopped. My stomach was turning in strange ways, heat seeping into my toes as I gently laid my face against his shoulder, trying not to be noticed as I did so.

We rode on like this for what felt like forever, time escaping as my face remained on his shoulders, the skin on my cheek growing warmer by the second. I closed my eyes, focusing on the feel of his shirt under my fingertips. absent-mindedly they began to move- slowly, gently, tracing small patterns into his chest as subtly as they could manage. I liked this. The not talking, not thinking, just feeling.

"Are you ready to meet my friend or did you want to feel me up some more?" he asked lazily, a hint of conceit littering his tone. My head snapped upwards, the cheek that had been laying against his jacket growing cold almost instantly. "Really, it's fine," he continued. "I won't object being touched."

"Would you ever?" I snapped, peeling myself off of the bike. Jamie pursed his lips for a moment, pretending to be in deep thought before giving me an answer.

"Only if the girl doing the touching was ugly." he decided proudly. I rolled my eyes, crossing my arms over my chest as my eyes wandered up the tall, blue-bricked building in front of us.

As we made our way along the sidewalks, one of Jamie's hands hung by his side awkwardly as he stuffed the other into his jacket pocket. I eyed his fingers between us, noting how easily I could have slipped my hand into his. _Maybe that's why he's keeping it there, idiot,_ I grimaced to myself. My eyes flickered between the sea of faces that watched us as we walked, the expressions ranging from curious and welcoming to flat out irritated and hateful.

"Try not to look like a caged animal, alright?"

"Maybe I wouldn't if all these people didn't look like they wanted to eat us."

"I meant in general, but that's the city life for you. Snappy people all around. You'd fit right in around here."

"I am not snappy."

"Yes you are."

"How?"

"This fiery attitude of yours going on," Jamie smirked. He paused for a moment, grinning to himself. "God I am funny."

"How is me having a fiery attitude funny?"

"Hopefully after you meet my friend, you'll find out."

Jamie pulled away from the corner, moving to a black building with a golden, glittering door that sparkled in the light. I narrowed my eyes, trying to make out the letters engraved across the gold as Jamie pulled something small and thin out of his boot.

"Who's Magnus Bane?" I asked, watching as he lifted the pen-like object to the door. Jamie ignored me, the stele humming slightly as he drew a glowing mark against the archway. "What the Hell is that?" I asked, reaching out to touch the mark. Jamie smacked my hand away lightly, muttering something about me having no patience as the door began to shudder.

Jamie pulled me back slightly, his hand lingering on my arm as the door hummed, the gold matter seeping down towards the ground.

"Holy shit." I breathed. Jamie smiled proudly, watching as the golden door melted before us. Pools of liquid bled into the sewer, people walking by as if nothing was happening. I swiveled my head all around, trying to find a bystander who had caught on to what we were doing- but there was none. Not a single human being in the street had cast a second glance in our direction, aside from the occasional flitty-brained teenage girl who did a double-take at Jamie.

"You're so cute when you're jealous." Jamie murmured, casting me a sideways smirk as he stepped into the now open archway. I crossed my arms, raising an irritated eyebrow at him.

"First of all, I'm not jealous," I shot quickly, Jamie rolling his eyes. "Secondly, how am I supposed to know you're not leading me to some dungeon where you're going to slit my throat and sell my body to perverted old men?"

"So theatrical," Jamie laughed. "What makes you think I wouldn't keep your body for myself?"

"You're disgusting."

"And you're overly-dramatic."

"I don't trust you."

"You used to."

It was quiet between us then, a heavy loss for words weighing down on my chest. Jamie's smile fell slightly, his expression sobering as he held out a hand for me to take. I felt my heart pick up slightly, a thousand scenarios running through my head as I let my arms fall. I don't know how it happened.

But somehow, my fingers found his.

Jamie led me up a large flight of iron black stairs, pausing only at a blue door where the numbers _1302 _adorned it in silver glitter. I raised my eyebrows, Jamie letting a heavy fist fall against the door several times before a tall asian man with jet-black hair and purple eyeshadow answered with an irritated expression.

"Hazel Roberts," Jamie smiled. "_This _is Magnus Bane."


	6. Choice In The Matter, Choice of Words

My eyes traveled downwards, trying to take in all of Magnus without letting the distaste show too obviously on my expression. No matter how ridiculous his choice of outer-appearance was, it seemed as though Magnus was the type of person to carry with him an untouchable confidence. He looked absolutely ridiculous, but there he was, dressed in lime green booty shorts and a matching halter top with striped fuzzy slippers standing in all his glory.

"Jamie? By the Angels, you look more and more like Will every day. I thought I told you to call before you bring guests," Magnus whined, crossing his arms and pouting. "I look an absolute mess."

"Got that right." I muttered, Jamie elbowing me lightly for the rude comment. Magnus shot me a look.

"Sorry Mag," Jamie shrugged apologetically. "But I thought you might finally want to meet the one the Clave have made such a fuss about."

"This is the little brown one?" Magnus exclaimed, nearly pushing Jamie into the wall so he could get a better look at me. He looked me over, and although I assumed the anxiety of being appraised would've bothered the old Hazel, the new one simply raised a daring eyebrow as if to say: _watch your comments._

"My magic," Magnus breathed, looking as though I were the sun itself. "She _does _look like Maia. I thought you said she was short?"

"She grew." Jamie made a face, brushing past Magnus and into the large apartment. I followed, shooting the strange man one last look before letting my eyes wander. Jamie took off his black jacket, the muscles in his shoulders shuffling under his grey T-shirt as he moved.

"You _did _say she changed a lot." Magnus agreed, closing the door. He flung himself lazily onto his white poofy couch, bits of fluff floating up into the air as he did so. Jamie raised an eyebrow.

"New sofa?"

"I couldn't help myself."

"When can you?"

"Oh, you're one to talk," Magnus scoffed. "Noreen called me the other day by the way, she demands to know why you refuse to write her back."

"Because she's a psychopath," Jamie blushed, glancing in my direction. "I suppose that's what I get, though."

"Jamie Lightwood, always in trouble. When exactly did you plan on telling me you were traveling through Lake Lyn?"

"Well I-"

"Can I just make it a point that letting someone who loves you believe you're dead is a very RUDE and UNTHOUGHTFUL thing to do?"

"I mean I-"

"All for this little one here who looks like she'd rather eat a dead squirrel than be in the same room as you? You really _are _as dumb as your father-"

"Look," I cut in quickly, trying to be as polite as possible. "I don't mean to intrude, and I'm sure Jamie didn't either-"

"Jamie always means to intrude," Magnus interrupted, earning himself a dirty look. "The question is, why?"

Jamie glanced at me once more as I bent down to scoop up the tanned tabby cat that had begun rolling itself between my feet. It mewed at me in annoyance, pushing and nibbling at my hair.

"When I told you that Hazel had changed, I never exactly told you how." Jamie began, taking a seat on the loveseat across from Magnus.

"No one ever tells me anything," Magnus grumbled. "Not until they need my help."

"And I'm sorry for that," Jamie insisted. "But this time it's pretty bad."

I sat down on the pink carpet and crossed my legs, the cat purring in my lap as I raised a cautious eyebrow.

"Something tells me this will be the first time Hazel's hearing this story too," Magnus grinned, sitting up. "Should I get the camera? Some tea? You know how I love drama, in the soap operas they're always holding tea and when the bad news breaks they drop it like idiots-"

"Magnus, focus."

"Right, right, sorry."

"Anyways, when I pulled her out of the lake some...things happened."

"What lake is everyone talking about?" I asked, Jamie looking nervous for the first time in his life.

"Lake Lyn. It's the one in Idris you always like to sit by."

"And why was I in said lake?"

"It led to a Portal at Creto's Institute."

The room began moving slowly, the edges of my vision blurry as the scene before me changed. The cat was gone. There was no carpet, but water- black, boiling water littered with screaming teenagers as they made their way to shore. I could see Jamie, dragging me into the grass like a doll as I lay limp in his arms.

"Hey!"

The room snapped back to reality, the cat leaping out of my arms as Magnus ran over to me, yanking me off the ground.

"You're burning my carpet!"

I glanced down, the carpet surrounding my feet charring to a dark brown.

"I didn't...I mean I-" looking for the words to explain myself were impossible. Nothing was coming out of my mouth but blank excuses.

"You burnt off Chairmen Meow's whiskers." Magnus grumbled, watching as the cat stumbled drunkenly about the room.

"Sorry," I murmured, my face flushing. "Sorry." I covered my mouth with my hand, praying I wouldn't vomit and ruin more of the carpet. Magnus looked at me, his eyebrows furrowed as the anger left his expression.

"What happened to you?" He whispered, leading me to the couch. Jamie bit his lip.

"This is why we need your help," he said gently. "Ever since Nathaniel brought her back she's been having these episodes-"

"Episodes?"

"Anastasia told me she freaked out and blew out a lightbulb in her vanity on accident-"

"That wasn't me!" I snapped angrily, Jamie raising his eyebrows in surprise. He lifted a hand in defense, the room starting to spin.

"Every time she starts to remember something she sets something on fire or blows something up and it's kinda becoming a pain in the ass-"

"I didn't ask for your help!" I shouted, standing. Jamie rose to his feet, trying to steady me although I quickly swatted his hands away in irritation. Magnus rested a hand on my shoulder.

"Look at me," Jamie ordered, cupping my face in his hands. "Until you tell me what's going on your head I'm never going to be able to give you what you want. Do you want to get better? Do you want to get help?"

"Help with what? The only one who ever seems to be needing something is you." I snapped. Magnus sat back down on the couch, pouring himself a drink.

"The only thing I need is for you to be okay."

"I'm fine."

"You're lying."

"How would you know?"

"Because I know _you,_" he stared at me, his gold-green eyes darkening as he studied my face. I knew what he was looking for in my features, and it was almost saddening to see him disappointed. Jamie was looking for the girl who would have heard his words and clung to them like they were the last on Earth, but she had been lost- and he could see that, just as I saw it in his eyes, she was not coming back. "No one comes back from the dead without some sort of side-effects. You think we don't hear you at night? Screaming, whining, crying about someone trying to get you? Do you know how many times Ms. Etta's had to change your sheets because you keeping charring them?"

"Why are you trying to embarrass me?" I shot, pulling away from him. "Why?"

"I'm not trying to embarrass you Hazel, God! I'm trying to help you!"

"How is it that you plan to help when we don't even know what's wrong?"

"What's wrong is that you can't remember anything and if you could-"

"Have you ever thought about the possibility that I don't _want _to remember?" I asked icily, crossing my arms. "What if this is what I want? To not deal with whatever bullshit everyone else is always whining about?"

"Whining?" Jamie whispered. "People died for you, Hazel."

"I never asked them to."

"You didn't have to."

There it was again, the heavy silence. Magnus was playing awkwardly with his thumbs. Jamie glanced out the window, his eyes flickering upwards where heavy, thick clouds had begun to bleed into the sky. He sighed.

"Fine," he said quietly. "If you don't want to remember, I get it. Even if we don't try to reclaim your memories though, this burning shit and having nightmares isn't going to go away. If you don't want to remember then at least help us to forget. _Completely _forget."

"How could you change your mind so quickly?"

"It's a gift," Jamie said flatly, his tone implying that it was not a gift at all. "Having a mind like mine allows me to separate what's right and what's necessary."

"And you think me remembering would be right?"

"I think you getting yourself under control is right." he shot coldly, all emotion gone from his tone. I hated him like this. "Even if you don't want to remember, I can't have you putting my team or anyone else at the Institute in danger."

"I'm not a threat."

"Not that _you _can recall."

Magnus gave a loud, exasperated sigh before rubbing his hands together.

"This is _your _mind, Hazel," he said sternly. "What is it that _you _want?"

"I want this to be done with," I said quickly. "The dreams, the visions, all of it."

"Visions?"

I pressed my eyes shut and silently scolded myself for letting that bit of information slip. If there was anything I needed to work on, it was placing a filter between my thoughts and my mouth.

"When I start to remember things, or when someone brings something up...I _see _it. Not like the see it in my head, but literally see it. It's like I'm there again, I know exactly how everything tastes and feels. I can see myself doing whatever they say I was doing. I saw Jamie pulling me out of the lake just now, it just...it makes me sick and the room goes blurry."

"And you didn't think this qualified as necessary information to share?" Jamie asked in irritation, still not looking away from the window.

"Whatever is in my head, get it out." I said quietly to Magnus, pleading with my eyes. He ran a hand through his jet black hair, nodding reluctantly before moving down the hallway.

Jamie and I stood in silence, nothing in the air but the sound of our breathing nad Magnus rustling in the back room. I curled my toes against the bare carpet, a sudden loneliness washing over me. I was stuck within two sides of myself, one of them irritated that Jamie had now left me to my own thoughts, and the other insisting that attention from him was the last thing I needed.

"What happens if this works?" I asked quietly, casting my pride to the side with reluctance.

"Then you can go back to living out your dream with Casper the Friendly Ghost."

"That's not his name."

"Casper," Jamie said flatly. "Is that not what you call him?"

"Without the title."

"Sorry," he grumbled unapologetically. "He's just so undeniably boring that I couldn't help but feel the overwhelming need to help spice up his persona."

"Talking him down in front of me isn't going to change my mind about him."

"So you do like him?"

"He asked me to go to-"

"Some party, I heard," Jamie shot coldly. "Great first date idea. Tag along in some skimpy, pathetic outfit that screams you have low self-esteem-"

"Jamie.."

"-get wasted, give yourself over-"

"I'm not going to 'give myself over'!"

"Oh don't tell me," Jamie asked in mock-surprise. "Is he actually going to buy you dinner first?"

"What the Hell is wrong with you? Twenty minutes ago you were getting me out of school and holding my hand and now your-"

"Now I'm treating you the way you treat me and it's pretty awful, isn't it?"

"All this talk about how I'm different, how am I supposed to know you weren't always an asshole?"

"You don't," Jamie fired, finally looking at me. "But you _should _know you weren't always annoying enough to bring it out of me."

"Right, because everything is my fault."

"Shall I count the ways?"

"Quoting Shakespeare? Really? Go for it."

"Let me see," Jamie started as I crossed my arms. "Endangered the lives of all my people, killed my parents, awoke a demon from Hell-"

"Your parents made their own decisions!" I shouted, horror-struck.

"How would you know? You can barely remember what you had for dinner last week."

"Don't you dare try to blame me for the loss of your parents."

"Sorry Hazel but that's all we poor orphans can seem to do," Jamie continued, hell-bent on hurting me one way or another. "Blame other people for all our issues."

"You think I don't know how that feels?" I blurted. Jamie blinked, chewing on the inside of his cheek as though he had to concentrate to keep his angered expression. "At least you HAD parents! At least you HAVE Simon and Isabelle. You _choose _not to love people Jamie, I don't get that choice anymore. I had that taken from me before I even realized it was an option!"

"Hazel.."

"And here you are, pushing and prodding and insisting and trying to force me to do what YOU want because somewhere in your head you believe that 'if only Hazel could remember' things would somehow get better for you."

"I didn't mean to-"

"Yes you did!" I shouted, clenching my jaw. The last thing I wanted to do was cry in front of this stupid, arrogant, irritating boy who had made me feel something I hadn't in a long time: loss. It had not made my attention that I had no one to love me upon my waking up until I'd seen Simon and Isabelle doting over Anastasia and Jamie's sister Ella. It hadn't dawned upon me that I had no family until I'd spent hours in City Hall looking up my last name and had found nothing. "You're selfish," I hissed, sniffling as Jamie rubbed his face and sighed. "All you care about is yourself."

"That isn't true," he said into his palms, sinking into the window seat. "God you have no idea how untrue that statement is."

There was a small clatter in the hall opening as Magnus dropped one of the many vials he was holding, his mouth open slightly as he flickered his eyes between us.

"Well..." he said gently, clearly in shock at the conversation he'd just overhead. "There are some things I need to get from-"

"It doesn't matter," I shot. "When you get everything you need let me know."

I snatched my shoes from beside the door, sniffling as I threw my hair into a messy bun.

"I'll be down in a minute." Jamie murmured, reaching for his jacket.

"Don't come near me," I hissed, Jamie giving me a distressed look. "I'd rather walk in the rain."


	7. Buzzin

**Shwayze-Buzzin**

* * *

"For once in my life I can say that I am thoroughly, thoroughly impressed by someone else's fashion choice." Stasi grinned at me, lifting an eyebrow as I looked my body over in her full-length mirror.

"You like it?" I asked, tugging at the black fabric that clung tightly to my body. I'd bought the Loop Delilah bodycon dress on a whim at the mall in an intense and therapeutic bout of shopping, looking for any and everything that would draw as much attention as possible.

"I don't like it, I love it. I couldn't have picked a better one out for you."

"Really?" I asked, surprise littering my tone. Anastasia rarely gave fashion-taste props to anyone, let alone dished out a compliment that didn't have to do with something she'd picked out or designed.

"No," she smirked. "Nobody picks out better clothes than I do. But you were close tonight, Roberts. Very, very close. You'll look great as long as you give me free reign over that hair."

I sank into the chair at her vanity, allowing her to tug and pull at my strands as she pleased.

"Is Jamie going tonight?" She asked slyly, pulling out a curling iron. I clenched my jaw, grabbing a bottle of red nail polish from one of the drawers.

"Who cares?" I asked nonchalantly.

"Still mad at him?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Magnus called," Stasi met my eyes in the mirror for a moment. "I know what was said."

"What _don't _you know?" I asked, hoping to butter her up as I started in on my thumb. Stasi pursed her lips for a moment, curling iron in one hand as she moved into deep thought.

"Nothing, actually," she answered after a moment. "There's nothing I can't really figure out on my own. Did you kno-"

"No," I answered immediately, laughing. "Whatever it is, I probably don't know, and I honestly don't care."

"So feisty."

"I thought you'd be used to it by now."

"Oh I am," Stasi promised. "I almost like the new you better."

"I thought we agreed not to speak as though I were two different people."

"I hate to break it to you, but you kinda are," Stasi sectioned off the bottom half of my hair and tied the top half into a high bun on top of my head. "You'd be weirded out too if you were on our side of things."

"Forget the old Hazel," I ordered gently, working towards my index finger. "She's gone."

"You make it sound so cryptic."

"If that's what it takes to make you guys understand that I'm not what I used to be than so be it."

"Don't you ever get curious?" she asked, releasing a lock of hair from the iron. A large, thick curl bounced down my back.

"Sometimes, but then it starts giving me a headache and I get more pissed off than anything." I answered honestly. "Can we change the topic?"

"Fine," Stasi agreed. "If you're not going to be with Jamie at this party...who _will _you be with?"

"You know who I'll be with." I grumbled, trying not to smile. Stasi raised her eyebrows and tried to hide a smirk.

"Mr. Tall, blonde and handsome," she quipped. "Since when do you have a thing for guys with light hair?"

"I usually don't," I mused. "But with Cas...there's just..."

"Something about him?"

"Don't make fun of me."

"I'm not! This is what best friends are supposed to do, talk about boys."

"Ahuh. If that's the case, when am I getting an invitation to your and Darren's wedding?"

"Don't make me burn you, child."

"I'm just saying, you'd make a very interesting couple."

"So would you and Jamie but you forbade me from saying his name so I didn't want to bring up any wedding dress ideas."

"I hate you."

"You love me."

"I _love _this nail polish color." I stated dramatically, changing the subject.

"Hopefully Cas does too."

"Look at that, someone who _doesn't _want to punch me in the throat for liking him."

"It's not that the others want to punch you in the throat, it's just that they see what it does to Jamie. We're all in a pretty awkward place right now."

"I thought we were forbidden to speak that name."

"Right, right, sorry."

"Stasi?"

"What?"

"Whatever happened to Thomas?"

Stasi was very quiet. The iron sat motionless in her hand for a moment as she swallowed thickly as though she were trying not to cry.

"You remember him?" she choked.

"I remember a lot from Creto's school," I admitted. "If anything it feels like that's where I came from in the first place."

"He's spent a lot of time with Ms. Etta," she said gently, working on my hair again. "She thinks he was poisoned or brainwashed while we were there. Some kind of drug. He was barely even functioning when we brought him home."

"What do you mean?"

"He couldn't say his own name, I'm not sure he even remembered it."

"What _did _he remember?"

"Mine." she said softly. I met her eyes in the mirror again and gave her a small smile.

"At least you know he loves you."

"Even so," she cleared her throat. "What happened is what happened. I can't be with someone who isn't in control of themself regardless of whether it's their fault. Turn your head."

I obeyed, switching hands with the nail polish brush.

"You think maybe if he gets better..."

"I've been going to see him," she said quickly. "Mom and Dad weren't happy at ALL when they found out he was a werewolf, but I politely pointed out that they let a half-demon half-angel creature stay at the Institute without second thought and they backed off. No offense, by the way."

"None taken. Who's pack was he in?"

"Luke Garroway's. Same as your parents."

Stasi yelped as I snapped my head towards her, pushing the iron into the back of her hand.

"My parents?"

"Fuck," she whined, dropping the iron on the vanity and grabbing her stele. "I thought you knew that already?"

"I've never met Luke," I admitted, wincing apologetically as she drew an _iratze _against her burned knuckles. "I didn't know he was still around."

The door swung open and a tall black girl with crazy long legs and big lips walked in. I felt myself staring at her, unable to pull my eyes away as I took in her short, choppy, black bangs and brown eyes. There was a numbness in the pit of my stomach that was growing by the second, and the room began swaying quicker than it ever had before.

"Nita?" I breathed, clamping a hand over my mouth.

"Speaking of Luke." Stasi murmured. The black girl knit her eyebrows at me, Stasi calling out as I bolted for the bathroom, heaving my lunch into the sink.

Both girls followed me with concerned faces, Stasi quietly thanking the Angels that I hadn't barfed on her shoes.

"You couldn't have made it to the toilet?" she whined, watching as I turned on the faucet and washed out the basin. I shook my head, leaning against the counter.

"Who's Nita?" The black girl asked. I sucked in a deep breath, grabbing a towel and drying my mouth before snatching up my toothbrush.

"My friend from Creto's Institute," I mumbled, loading the brush with toothpaste. "She died."

Anastasia raised her eyebrows, studying the black girl with incredulous focus before her mouth popped open.

"Holy shit," she laughed. "You _do _look like her. I'm sorry Haze, if I had known I would've kept the door locked or something."

"Does this girl have a problem with werewolves?" The girl asked, crossing her arms. I shot her a look.

"No, not at all," Stasi intervened. "You just look a lot like someone she lost. It's a really complicated situation, okay? Brings up a lot of bad memories."

"Well I'm sorry to hear that," the girl shrugged. "But it's not my fault or my problem."

"Do you wanna get hit?" I growled, my words muffled by the toothbrush. The girl raised her eyebrows and grinned in surprise.

"I should've known to keep you two away from each other anyways," Stasi grumbled, moving back to the vanity as I spit in the sink and washed out my mouth. "Haze this is Nihada, she's part of Luke's pack."

"We were just talking about him." I murmured, brushing past the girl and sitting back in front of the vanity. Nihada sat on the edge of Stasi's bed and tucked her hands under her butt.

"Good things, I hope," she said easily. "I just wanted to know if you had any clothes I could borrow."

"You're going to the party?" Stasi asked, working on my hair again.

"Not your lame little highschool gig," Nihada rolled her eyes, my irritation growing with each word of hers. "I'm twenty-two, I'm too old for that. Most of us are going to Glimmer."

"You can borrow whatever you want," Stasi agreed, waving the iron at her closet. "As long as you get Luke to talk to Hazel."

"Little Ms. Sunshine over here?"

"You're about to lose another lightbulb, Stasi." I warned, shooting Nihada a look. She averted her eyes quickly.

"Her name is _Hazel_, and Luke will want to talk to her after he hears her name anyways, trust me."

"Is this the one we went to Idris looking for?"

"Looking for?" I asked, Stasi tugging at a new section of my hair. Nihada rolled onto her stomach.

"Yeah, like six months ago? That Jamie kid got a whole group of us to go after you."

"Jamie?"

"Tall, mopey, never brushes his hair."

"I know what he looks like," I snapped. "And his hair is fine. I'm asking about the situation."

"You went missing and he fell into some sort of hero complex or something-"

"And?"

"And he took a group of us to Idris? Of course, it kinda killed the mood when they enchanted a dead body to look like you and ruined all hope of your salvation-"

"This a little more information than she asked for." Stasi interjected quickly. Nihada rolled her eyes and slipped off the bed, disappearing into the closet.

I watched myself in the mirror for the next few minutes, Stasi fiddling with my hair until finally, somehow, it turned into something out of a magazine. My long dark hair cascaded down my back in thick, wide curls, parted on the left side and pinned back behind that ear with silver sparkling pins.

"Thank you." I murmured, slipping on my black heels.

Stasi led us out into the hallway, several of the students doing double-takes when they saw us. She grinned to herself, and I didn't blame her. Whether the attention was good or bad, it was nice to be watched.

"You are definitely not wearing that." Simon ordered, standing in front of Stasi so that she couldn't move. I shuffled to the side awkwardly, trying to save myself from a similar scolding.

"Daddy, come onnnnnnn!" Stasi whined. "Look you can barely see my bellybutton and I-"

"Since when did you get that pierced?" Simon cried, his eyes wide. "When did I _ever _say you could get that pierced?!"

"Well Hazel has one and I-"

"Hazel is not my daughter!" Simon cried. There was an awkward silence in the hallway, Darren and Aaron appearing at the wrong time in the conversation, their faces forlorn. Stasi shot Simon a look, his mouth tightening into a thin line.

"Hazel, I-"

"It's fine," I said quickly. "It's true."

"I love you every bit as much as I love Anastasia, I was just making a point-"

"Don't try to make it better," I answered softly, giving a small smile. "You're not my Dad. You're not obligated to act like it."

"No, but I choose to." he answered, catching me off guard. I rolled my eyes.

"Daddy, if Hazel can wear that, I can wear this."

"That is a T-Shirt."

"It's a dress," Isabelle interjected, breezing into the hall and winking at me. "She looks great."

"She looks like a hooker." Simon pouted.

"Maybe," Darren agreed. "But a high-end hooker, for politicians or athletes." Simon shot him a look, Darren shrinking awkwardly into the shadows.

"And you," Simon turned his attention on me. "It's only sixty degrees out. You're going to freeze."

"Simon I am the LAST person to get cold. Always."

"Okay, so it was a terrible excuse to make you change," Simon retorted. "But that doesn't change the fact that you look-"

"Beautiful." Jamie stood at the head of the hallway in his Shadowhunter gear, his voice carrying softly towards us. A lump formed in my throat, heat washing over me as I looked bashfully down at my feet. I was never one to be shy.

"Where are you going?" Isabelle asked, raising an eyebrow.

"You know me," Jamie said hoarsely, shrugging. "All work no play."

"Work? Jamie we work every day, don't you know how to have fun?"

"Nah," he tried laughing, breezing past us. "You don't become the Greatest by having fun."

"Can't you just forget about that for one night?" Heaven asked, coming up behind him. "If I'm not gonna be with you-"

"I'm just going to see Magnus," Jamie lied. Isabelle and Simon nodded, completely unaware of his deception as everyone started pushing through the front door of the Institute and out into the night. Aaron's Jeep roared to life somewhere in the garage. "I'll be back before you know it."

I followed the others down the corridor, my heart thudding lightly at the sensation that had washed over me as Jamie passed. I looked over my shoulder, watching him go as I made my way towards Aaron's car. I climbed into the passenger seat, the feel of Jamie's fingers brushing against mine as he'd walked past still lingering against the back of my hand.


	8. Liquid Bravery

Casper had a lot of really rich friends. Aaron pulled up on the lawn of the large three-story white marble house, not even bothering to try the driveway.

"What?" he asked as I shot him a look. "Everyone else parked on the lawn!" The grass was littered with red cups, several members of the football team throwing rolls of toilet paper into the trees, screaming and cheering and drinking every other second as if it were the greatest accomplishment of their life.

"There's Jeremy," Stasi hissed into my ear, her eyes pinned on the blonde she'd had her sights on since we'd arrived at Pinewood East. "How do I look?" she asked, pushing up her boobs.

"Like a hooker." Aaron offered cheerfully, Stasi nodding as if it were just the ego-boost she needed.

"Wait!" I cried, grabbing her arm before she could charge away. She raised an eyebrow at me. "I mean...I just..."

"Don't tell me you're nervous," Stasi laughed. "It was your idea to come in the first place!"

"I'm not nervous!" I lied angrily, suddenly not feeling so confident. "I just don't know anybody and I-"

"And she's the one making fun of _me _for hating crowds." Aaron smirked, crossing his huge arms. I rolled my eyes, releasing Stasi. She grinned at me, giving me a quick peck on the cheek before literally, and I mean literally, prancing over to the football boys.

I watched in amusement as she flipped her shiny new extensions, her long eyelashes dusting over her cheekbones as she flashed the blonde a dazzling smile. Naturally, as if any other reaction were possible, he was mesmerized. Stasi slithered her arm around one of his massive biceps, leaning her head against his shoulder as she proceeded to chatter about God-Knows-What.

"How the Hell does she do that?" Heaven asked, a mixture of amazement and disgust washing over her expression. I laughed at her, the nervousness lifting from my skin as I did so. Heaven shot me a look and I raised my hands in defense.

"She _is _half-angel," Aaron murmured in deep study, pursing his lips and nodding to himself as if it were a perfect explanation. "It must be that."

"We're _all _half-angel, dumbass," Darren muttered, leading us through the lawn and up to the giant red front door. "Except Hazel."

"What are you trying to say?" I demanded, pretending to be hurt as I put a hand over my heart. Darren rolled his eyes.

"I'm trying to say you're also half-demon," he stated matter-of-factly. "You're twice as sneaky with your evil, tempting ways."

"Do I tempt you?" I asked slyly, closing what little space there was between us. Darren's eyebrows shot up, his cheeks flaming red as Heaven burst into laughter in the background.

The red door swung open, Jack Beckendorf standing proudly in the archway. Jack was a pudgy boy, maybe five-foot-eight on a good day if he wore a nice pair of shoes. He had permanently pink, round cheeks, now blazing due to the influence of alcohol and small black eyes rimmed with thick lashes. His two front teeth stuck out slightly, and his chest puffed out so far that I was unsure if he was naturally built like that or if it was just due to his man-boobs.

"Who's the beaver?" Taz asked eagerly, slinging an arm around my shoulder. I glared at him.

"_This _is Jack, and _you _are supposed to be at home right now."

"Take it easy grandma," Taz scolded. "I'm fifteen, not five."

"I'm not your grandma."

"No, you're my sister, so act like it!"

"You can't tell me how to act like a sister when you've never had one!"

"Well is there any way to give you back? You're kinda killing my dreams here."

"Uhhh, look kid," Jack drawled drunkenly, raising his eyebrows in false authority. "We can't really have any babies getting drunk around here, you know," he took another long swig of his beer. "They can't really handle their alcohol."

"You're right," Taz agreed, pursing his lips and nodding. I rolled my eyes, knowing full well that he was bullshitting. "In fact, I bet you could teach me a few things. Let's see you down the rest of that bad boy right there." He pointed to the beer in Jack's hands.

Not to be challenged by a freshman, Jack smirked lazily, putting the bottle to his lips and tipping it over, concentrating as hard as he could.

"Seriously, Isabelle will kill me if she finds out that you're here." I grumbled.

"Isabelle doesn't even know I exist," Taz scoffed. "And neither does Anastasia, apparently." I followed his gaze over my shoulder and out into the lawn where Stasi and the blonde football player were laughing as though one of them had just told the funniest joke in the entire world.

"You mean...you like...?HA!" I scoffed, making a face. "There's no way in Hell."

"Yeah yeah," Taz grumbled, sighing and turning his attention back to Jack. "Whatever."

"Obviously he's not gonna let you i-"

"Ah ah ah, just wait for it. Patience, young Jedi." Taz demanded. I rolled my eyes, Taz counting to three before Jack promptly passed out on the floor in front of us, his body hitting the ground with a heavy thud. Darren bent down and grabbed the still half-full bottle out of his hands, wiping the lip of it with his shirt.

"Don't wanna waste a good drink!" he grinned cheerfully, taking a sip before entering the house.

The inside was worse than the lawn, the air wafting towards us with disgusting force.

"What the Hell is that?" Aaron asked, covering his nose.

"That, my friend, is the smell of pure, unrelenting, teenage adolescence." Taz grinned, sucking in a deep breath. "Just take it all in." Aaron made a gagging noise and headed for the safety of the backyard.

"What the Hell are they staring at?" Heaven snapped harshly, directing my attention to a group of guys in the corner. They were all wearing polo shirts and cargo pants, their hair spiked upwards.

"Your boobs," I answered with a grin, pushing her towards them. "Just a quick note: the more gel in their hair, the bigger the douche." Heaven looked over her shoulder in horror as one of the guys grabbed her hand, trying to make small talk. Darren roared with laughter beside me, watching as Heaven moved her awkwardly stiff body back and forth in a scary attempt to dance.

"This is classic."

"I'm gonna go find a drink." I shouted, trying to be heard over the roar of the crowd. I shuffled my way between several rooms, getting lost twice before I finally came upon a sitting room. It was large, with a grand piano and sofa in one corner, every wall covered with thick bookshelves.

I glanced at the large candelabra on the piano, biting my lip and ensuring no one was in sight before heaving myself upwards and making my way towards it. I leaned against the piano, studying the candle with complete and utter focus as I tried to light it. My eyes locked on the wick, my breathing slowing down. One...Two...Three...

Nothing.

I tapped my foot in irritation, staring for several more minutes before finally giving up. What the Hell did I think I was doing, anyways? Stasi's lightbulb had been an accident, and so had Magnus' carpet. Whatever it was I could do, it clearly was out of my hands. What if it was something that occurred _around _me instead of something that came _from _me? I gritted my teeth, wondering how many insults Jamie would toss at me if I dared divulge that theory.

"Jamie," I muttered, shoving off of the piano angrily and turning. "Stupid Lightwoo-"

I paused, my mouth never fully closing around his last name as flickers of light began dancing along the wall in front of me. They weren't sparks, or flashlights, or beams. They were genuine touches of warmth, cluttered with a shadow. Cluttered with _my _shadow. Because the light was coming from behind me.

I turned slowly, my breath hitching as the candelabra came into view. Not only was it lit, but so were the thirty other candles in the room, each of the wicks burning brightly with new life and power. A sense of pride and dread washed over me, the heat from the candles warming my skin as I took in the scene before me. There wasn't much that I could say, or much that I could do for that matter as I watched the mini bouts of fire lick wildly at the air around them.

"Holy shit." I whispered. Sighing with frustration, I turned, colliding with a long, lean body.

Cas grinned down at me, his Letterman jacket hanging heavily on his slim shoulders. The second my fingers brushed against the front of his shirt the room began to blur at the edges, and suddenly there was nothing but the swell of pounding music in my ears and my own icy breathing.

"You're here!" He said excitedly, pulling me into the kitchen. "There's some people I want you to meet." The second his fingers gripped mine it was like icicles had shot up my veins, a mixture of unfavorable pain and irresistable pleasure. I swallowed thickly, trying not to lose my cool, my cheeks flushing brightly as he pulled me over to a large dining room.

A group of teenagers sat idly among the luxurious cherywood table, a giant chandelier dangling above them. They each looked royally bored, casting me sideways glances as Cas took me to them. The first to speak was a cream-colored boy with wide-set, round green eyes and a smushed nose, a crop of blonde hair dusting over his forehead.

"Who's this one?" He asked, his accent reminding me of Heaven.

"Guys, this is Hazel. This is the one I was telling you about."

"The little firecracker?" The English boy asked in amusement, raising an eyebrow and appraising me. "So this is the one who almost blew us to bits?"

"It was an accident."

"Always is," the boy snapped quickly, smiling at me. "I'm Gint. This is Gemma, Blake, Rage, and Cora. All happy to meet you so Cas can finally shut up about the 'fire girl'."

I let my eyes wander around the judgemental table. There was Gemma, with her waist-long hair that was so blonde it almost shimmered, matched with deep blue eyes and pink, small lips. She was taller than Anastasia and almost as pretty, though there was a small scar on the right side of her chin.

Blake, a short red-faced boy looked somewhat like a weasel with his pinched up expression and short, pointy nose. He had thick eyebrows and beady eyes, with a narrow mouth and ears that stuck out slightly. Rage was massive, probably around Aaron's size, with brown skin and black curly hair that was cut short on the sides. He had a girthy face with a widespread nose and big brown eyes under heavy brows.

Cora was nearly impossible to see behind him. She looked like barely measured up to my chest even in heels, and was so skinny I could've mistaken her for a twelve year old. She had close-cropped short red hair that stuck out in organized gelled spikes underneath her black baseball hat, turned backwards. Cas nodded to his group before pulling us back into the kitchen for a moment, watching me carefully.

"They'll warm up eventually." He said gently, our bodies close. Everything I had felt the night at Creto's Institute had come rushing back to me and crashed over my senses like a thick wave, making all thought process nearly impossible. I remembered the way his eyes were glowing with inhuman vibrancy, the way they were beginning to now.

"Your eyes..." I murmured, unable to say anything else.

"Don't forget where I met you," he said gently, not touching me. "We all have our talents. There's some things I need to talk to you abo-"

"No," I interrupted, smiling apologetically. "I dont want any serious talks tonight. Any other time, just not tonight."

"Alright," Cas agreed, nodding. "But if you don't want to talk...then what _do _you want?"

I searched a moment for some kind of sexual innuendo or implication in his tone, but I couldn't find it. This wasn't like talking to Jamie. Cas was genuinely asking what I wanted.

"A drink," I cleared my throat quickly, trying to snap myself back into the present. "I just really want a drink."

"Done. Stay right here."

Usually I would've disobeyed for the simple fact that I didn't like taking orders from anyone, ever, but as I watched Cas walk away I felt rooted to the spot. He disappeared into the sea of bodies, leaving me there to do nothing but shiver at the loss of his presence and observe everyone around the room. Heat flooded back into my veins a few seconds after his disappearance as if I was regaining control of my own body; but even then I chose to stay put.

"Here," he smiled proudly, handing me a full bottle of New Amsterdam. "I know how much you like, so I swiped the whole thing."

"I'm flattered." I teased. Cas' face fell.

"No! I didn't mean it like that!" he insisted, several apologies tumbling out of his mouth at once. "I just-"

"It was a joke," I grinned, taking a long swig. The vodka burned in my throat and traveled into my abdomen, sending heat through my abdomen all at once that was suddenly accompanied by a newfound confidence. "Dance with me."

Cas raised his eyebrows as I gripped his hand tightly, pulling him into the ocean of people with me. We were soon lost in the bodies as I rolled against him, pressing my back against his chest and downing another long swig of the alcohol. I was suddenly less interested in the mass amounts of people I didn't know, and how horribly this whole 'going back to highschool' thing was going for me. I didn't care about the fact that Jamie wasn't here, or that Stasi was probably going to sleep with Blondie even though she barely knew him. I didn't care about the fact that I could no longer control my powers or myself. I wanted to be wild. That's what fire _was. _

I released every sense of what it meant to be a polite, controlled, well-behaved young lady and let myself go completely, thrashing and grinding with the beat. I rolled my hips against Cas, guiding his nervous hands up my body as we danced. Everywhere his fingers trailed my skin became freezing, like swiping icyhot against your bare body. Goosebumps ran all along my arms and torso, Cas gripping my ribcage with his fingertips as he let me move to the beat.

He turned me, and although I knew it seemed ridiculous to be impatient, I grabbed his hands, sliding them down my waist. I wasn't sure if Cas could feel what I was feeling, or if I was just going out of my mind and he couldn't feel anything at _all, _but I didn't quite care anymore. I took another long swig of the now half-empty bottle of Amsterdam, the familiar feeling of warm drunkenness washing over my welcoming body.

"Easy now," Gint interjected, snapping me out of my trance. Cas looked like he'd just been shaken awake, unaware of where he was. "If you don't slow down we'll have to start picking out baby names."

"Is there something you wanted?" Cas asked in irritation, although he was smiling. Gemma flipped her hair and crossed her arms in disdain.

"This party sucks," she stated simply. "We wanna go to Glimmer."

"Why would we go to Glimmer?"

"The faeries are there." Cora said quietly, as if only we were allowed to hear it. She raised an eyebrow, a smile playing at the corner of her lips as Cas bit his. He glanced at me.

"I don't know guys," he shrugged. "You go ahead. I'm gonna stay with Haz-"

"I wanna go to Glimmer," I said quickly, my vision blurring at the name. "You're talking about the silvery stuff that drips from the ceilings right? I've never tried it," Gemma could care less about what I was saying, examining her nails as Cors appraised me. "I want to go," I insisted. "As long as the others can come too."

"The others?" Gemma asked as I followed them through the living room, Cas holding my hand tightly.

"My friends."

"They'll be fine without you," Gint insisted, nodding to Stasi who waved at me, still playing in the yard with her blonde boy. "Besides," he grinned, looking at me over his shoulder. "I'm beginning to think you don't belong with them anymore."

"Then who do I belong with?" I challenged, Cas still gripping my hand as Gint opened the door to his black Charger. He gave me a devilish kind of smile, one that made me feel like he knew something I didn't.

"With us." he held the car door open for me, all of them watching to see if I would get in. I clenched my jaw, sliding in quickly. What was there to think about? Whether or not I would find myself in trouble, what harm could other Shadowhunters cause? And even if they knew about a world I didn't, about something so dangerously exciting they had to whisper about it, why didn't I deserve to know? The truth was, I wanted to be bad. I wanted to not know if I was going to end up in trouble. I wanted to be wild.


	9. High

**S/O to IChangedForYou for the sweet review, it reminded me that writing isn't about the popularity of your stories but the story you tell itself.**

**This chapter is told in cut-scene segments, which means these events are going on at the same time.**

**In My Mind-Axwell**

**Spaceman-Hardwell**

* * *

The entire club was a chaotic blur of flashing white lights and pounding music. I took it all in, the heat from the sweaty, moving bodies below us washing over me as we looked down the balcony at the dance floor. A giant black chandelier hung from the ceiling, silver goop dripping down onto the bodies below.

"What do you think?" Cas asked loudly in my ear, trying to be heard over the pounding beat. "This place changes every night. Literally, the whole inside will be rearranged if we come back tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?" I smirked. "Trying to ask me out on another date?"

"You two make me sick," Gint stated lazily, lacing his fingers in mine as Cora led us down the grey concrete steps. I tried to contain the excitement welling up in my stomach with Cas on one arm and Gint on the other. Gemma squealed, running to someone who appeared to be her friend.

* * *

***Jamie POV***

* * *

The cave was darker than I expected, at least far darker than any that _I'd _ever been to. The entire place stunk with demonic stench, Downworlders passing me irritated glances as I slithered between them. I'd been following a demon, Razul, for nearly an hour in hopes that he'd lead me to his main pack of cronies, but so far there wasn't any luck. I watched him disappear into the shadows, my heart rate picking up as the Seraph blade strapped under my gear seemed to grow heavier.

This is what I wanted. A distraction. Something to kill. Something to remind me that life wasn't all about Hazel, and high school, and what other people expected from me. I missed the feeling of being in control of my own life, and going out every night on solo hunts was the only thing that seemed to keep me from slitting my own throat. I followed Razul into the dark, my vision blurring as the smell grew stronger.

* * *

***Hazel***

* * *

Gemma wiggled her way over to me, at least a hundred people crammed into the dance floor. I grinned as she brought a bottle of liquor to my lips, tilting my head back as a trickle of it slipped down my chin. Cora smirked at me, a vampire slipping his hands around her waist and nuzzling the side of her neck. I looked up, Cas watching me intently with his glowing blue eyes Part of me wanted to ask what he was staring at, but what was the point? The music was too loud, and I already knew. He was looking at me. In all my messy, drunken, disheveled-haired glory, he was looking at me, and at the moment it was al I wanted.

We grinned at each other, Cas trailing his fingers up my arms and leaving goosebumps behind on my skin. I rolled against his body just as I had earlier, except this time it was different. This time I didn't mind that there were people around, or that I might lose control. This time I _wanted _to lose control.

* * *

***Jamie***

* * *

There were seven of them, all snarling, surrounding me in a clock formation and snapping, growling as if anything they could do or say would intimidate me. My confidence only added to their irritation, and I could hear them spitting curses at me in Latin, swearing on their leaders they would never let another Nephillim breathe in their presence. Razul twitched his buggy-eyes at me, a feat that was quite impressive considering he had the head of a lobster. I watched his claws twitch in irritation, smirking as I pulled my Seraph blade off of my back and held it out in front of me. The demons hissed in fury, the very glow of the heavenly weapon burning their eyes.

* * *

***Hazel***

* * *

I laid my head back against Cas' chest as I rolled my hips against him, slithering my hand behind me and up around the back of his neck. Gemma squealed again, popping another bottle so forcefully the liquid squirted everywhere, dowsing the front of my dress. The crowd cheered. The lights flashed against my skin, burning my eyes so sweetly I couldn't decide if I wanted to shut them and feel the music or keep them open to watch the beauty occurring before me. Cas' hands were like Antarctica against me, the cold seeping through my clothes like an ice cube on a T-shirt. The very feel of him there was making my insides hotter by the second, an event so utterly confusing that I decided to spend no time thinking about it, and more time enjoying it as we moved.

* * *

***Jamie***

* * *

The idiot to my left was the first to move. Naturally, he was the first to die.

"_Michael._" I smirked, the blade glowing in my hands. It grew an extra foot, the demon barely able to comprehend what had happened when it landed in the center of his abdomen. He looked at me, his feelers twitching towards my face as I shifted the blade higher, the demon squealing in pain as he turned into absolute ash before me. _Behind you._ I flipped _Michael _under my arm, turning just in time to see the demon's arm turn into dust. It screeched, lunging with its other. Ducking underneath it, I turned my attention to another one of his companions, rolling off of his back and slicing upwards into the next one's face.

* * *

***Hazel***

* * *

Gemma appeared next to me again somehow, the white lights flashing against her blonde hair like a halo as she caught a drop of the silvery dew as it fell from the ceiling. She rubbed it between her thumb and index finger, beckoning to me with it before I leaned over and licked it off of her hand. She squealed, Blake and Cora cheering for me loudly in the background as I let Cas hold my weight, tilting my head backwards and letting my mouth fall open. More of the faerie drug slipped into my throat as it dripped from the black chandelier above, my entire body on vibrate as I took in more and more of it. If anything in the world was better than sex, it was this.

* * *

***Jamie***

* * *

Turn. Move. Slice. Up. Move. Kick. Roll. Move. Bite. Move. Grin. Move. Turn. Slice. My entire body was on autopilot, the familiar ecstasy of battle washing over me as more and more of Razul's friends came to defend their leader, more and more bodies crowding around me just to be sliced down within seconds. It was heaven, the way their bodies turned into ash around my Seraph blade, their weight lifting off of the weapon within seconds of it penetrating them. My hair and face were littered with red glowing embers, the kind that pop out of a wild fire when it isn't tended to, my skin burning and buzzing as I cut through more and more lives.

* * *

***Hazel***

* * *

I swayed my hips back and forth, Cas and Gint jumping around to the beat like college frat boys, their faces and clothes smeared with silver honey. I pulled the sparkling pin out of my locks, letting my hair fall wildly around my face as I thrashed around, unsure of who or what I was even grinding against. There was a burning glow in the pit of my stomach, the way your insides reach and flutter for someone you want to kiss. We were being stupid, and brash, and wild, and inappropriate, and there was no other place in the world I wanted to be. Someone pressed another bottle to my lips and I drank, the liquor now dripping down my neckline. A tongue ran up my collarbone, licking it off.

* * *

***Jamie***

* * *

I backed, up, refusing to let them corner me as blood dripped down the top of my cheek- a thin gash running through my skin where Razul had grazed my cheek. _Jamie Lightwood, _I taunted myself, my eyes fluttering over the growing crowd of snarling demons before me, _What kind of mess have you gotten yourself into now?_ I had pushed myself to the very limit, almost unsure of whether or not I could even survive a hoard of demons like this. But that's what I wanted. The risk. That's what I had come here for. To test my limits.

* * *

***Hazel***

* * *

I was pressed up against Cas' body, his hands gripping me so tightly I was sure it would bruise, not that I would have minded. The room was buzzing, not because I was remembering anything, but because I was so unexplainably high that I couldn't see straight. I was unsure what was real. Was that Cas, tipping his head back in euphoria and grinning, his perfectly dazzling teeth flashing in the white lights? Yes. Was this me, entranced by the silver drug sliding over his Adam's apple and down to his chest? Yes. Was I going to lick it off of him? _Hell_ yes.

* * *

***Jamie***

* * *

I was sweating. Not the nervous, anxious kind of sweating. It was the thrilling, adventurous, _I'm so excited I could cry_ kind of sweating. The kind that happens when you're working your ass off and slaughtering hundreds of demons. I groaned in annoyance as Razul clipped the back of my hoodie, using it to propel me through the black iron door behind us. I landed on my spine, rolling backwards onto my feet and flipping _Michael _in defiance as rain slithered through my clothes and over my eyes.

* * *

***Hazel***

* * *

Gint was behind me, his lips grazing the back of my ear as he and Cas sandwiched me between their bodies- Gint absorbing all the heat from my skin and radiating it back to me like a blanket. One body was freezing. One body was very, very, hot. I shivered, leaning my head back against Gint's shoulder as I moved against him.

* * *

***Jamie***

* * *

Goosebumps ran up and down my arms from the freezing rain, every demon that dared come within swords reach crumbling into dust within seconds. I drew my elbow back, catching one in the snaggle tooth as I swiveled under his swinging arm, digging my Seraph blade into the space between his shoulders and twisting. I turned, kicking the knee of another and snapping it clean off, giving him only seconds before doing a complete 360 and decapitating him.

* * *

***Hazel***

* * *

I shoved Cas behind one of the red curtains, his body slamming against the stone wall as I collided with him, pushing my mouth against his, my hands edging up his T-Shirt. I was biting, pulling, shoving, grabbing, the drug burning through my veins like a wildfire.

* * *

***Jamie***

* * *

Michael slid across the alley, Razul's pincers inches from my throat as I tried to keep him at bay, the weight of him crushing my chest.

* * *

***Hazel***

* * *

Cas wasn't pushing me like I wanted him to, wasn't daring to put his hands in places he shouldn't like I wanted him to, but the very _feel _that his skin gave me was just as exciting. He wasn't being the leader, but he was letting _me _lead, and it satisfied me well enough to keep my lips against his. I moved his hands to my backside, grinning and tossing my head back as he quickly got the idea and squeezed.

* * *

***Jamie***

* * *

I grunted, the tip of Razul's claw sliding against my throat as his cronies snarled and hissed and growled behind him, one of them tugging at the rest of my weapons and snapping at my legs. I brought my knee up between his legs, knowing full well that no matter what kind of creature, all males had the same ultimate weakness. He snarled at me, moving his hands to cover himself and giving me just enough time to snatch a dagger from my boot and stab it into the side of his skull.

* * *

***Hazel***

* * *

Cas ran his tongue against my throat, kissing it softly as I tugged on his hair, the ice shooting through my veins again as I straddled his lap. I kept grinding against him, the hairs on the back of my neck standing up as I pressed a hand against the wall behind his head, the stone melting at my touch. He laughed, covering his face as I stared at my fingers bewildered. Wasn't I only supposed to have five? It was not Cas sitting underneath me suddenly, but Jamie. I was not in the club, but in a bedroom. I shook my head, the drugs working against my mind as they begun to wear off. _I need more. _

* * *

***Jamie***

* * *

The rest of the demons cried out in a mixture of fury and annoyance as their leader writhed on the ground, his body slowly disintegrating as I rolled backwards onto my hands and popped up, snatching the Seraph blade from the ground and holding it daringly out in front of me. Again, someone was stupid enough to move.

* * *

***Hazel***

* * *

I was under the white lights again, having been irritated by Cas' lack of aggression and my lack of euphoria.

* * *

***Jamie***

* * *

Demon dust. Demon dust everywhere.

* * *

***Hazel***

* * *

Sweaty bodies pressed against mine, my stomach turning. Was I getting sick? Or tired? Or was this the slow, painful climb back into faerie drug heaven? I raised my hands above my head as I swayed to the beat, smearing the silver liquid between my fingers before running my tongue over my hands, my hips still rocking.

* * *

***Jamie***

* * *

Cut. Kill. Slice. Move. Turn. Smirk. Insert snarky comment here. Duck. Duck. Swing. Kick. Duck. Duck. Swing. Slice.

* * *

***Hazel***

* * *

Cas had his hands on my ass again, and at this point even Rage was bobbing his head back and forth to the beat, only smiling when a small, blonde, pixie-looking girl crawled into his lap and began kissing at his neck. Cora was teasing her vampire boy-toy, egging him on to the point of wanting to feed but moving her neck each time his lips came close. Gemma was bodysurfing the crowd, her gold, rhinestone-encrusted bra glittering in the strobe lights. I let my head fall back again, grinning.

* * *

***Jamie***

* * *

I stood among the piles of bones and dust, nothing left but the sound of heavy rain hitting the alley gravel and my heavy breathing. I wasn't happy, I wasn't sure if I would _ever _be truly happy, or what happiness even meant, but I was satisfied. I could breathe a little easier, be a little less stiff. It had taken my mind off of Hazel for a good while, but as I smeared the blood off of my cheek with the back of my hand, all I could think about was crawling through her bedroom window like I had before. I had to forget her. I had to forget the entire idea that something else besides fighting and protecting my people could exist in my world. My head snapped upwards at the sound of feet and hooves and claws, more and more demons pouring into the alley as if I had a siren going off above my head.

Shit.

* * *

***Hazel***

* * *

I was a mess of glitter and liquor and raw feeling. I was nothing close to holy at this moment, nothing close to morality or anything pure and good. I felt dirty, and real, and euphoric, and timeless. There was only one word to describe this place, full of life and energy and freedom.

* * *

***Jamie***

* * *

There were at least another hundred. I gripped the Seraph blade tightly, full aware that this had been a stupid idea. It was _always _a stupid idea, the only difference this time being that I wasn't sure I really had anything to go back home to.

But this wasn't a time to think about my lack of true friends and no family, because there was a legion of demons surrounding my entire frame, no room for mistakes to be made. I glanced down at the heavy gash in my arm, placing a slight amount of my weight on my left ankle to see how well it would hold up.

It wasn't the first time in my life that I wondered if I would die.

And I hoped it wasn't the last.

* * *

***Hazel***

* * *

Home.


	10. Evaporate

"What the Hell happened?" I cried, Jamie rolling his eyes at me as I grabbed his face in my hands. I ran a thumb gently over the gash that ran from underneath one corner of his eye down to the divet in his cheekbones. It was the first time I had touched him in two weeks, and the warmth of his skin almost startled me. Jamie swallowed thickly, staring down at me through thick lashes and clenching his jaw with a small smirk.

"I know," he murmured gently, his tone stirring the pit of my stomach. I dropped my hand from his face immediately, clearing my throat. "How dare I ruin such a pretty face, right?"

"Oh Jamie," Darren chided, catching up with us in the school hallway. "You'll always have a pretty face, scars or no scars." Jamie rolled his eyes in annoyance, trying not to laugh as he swatted him away.

"The real question," Darren drawled dramatically, slinging an arm around my shoulder. "Is where the Hell were _you _the other night?"

"Yeah!" Stasi chimed in, crossing her arms in irritation. "You totally ditched us!"

"Not that Stasi minds," Aaron grinned, earning a deadly look from my best friend. "She was too busy sucking face with your brother to notice."

"My _what?!_" I exclaimed, my eyes wide as I crossed my arms and stared her down, waiting for a reply.

"Blonde boy is a total stage-five clinger," Stasi whined. "I was bored with him within an hour."

"Yeah an hour after stealing his innocence."

"You screwed him?" I asked, grinning. Stasi rolled her eyes and pushed me lightly, our group continuing through the halls.

"Of course I did. But literally a minute and a half afterwards he kept asking me to be his girlfriend and meet his parents and just...ugh."

"I know," I drawled sarcastically. "Boys with morals make me sick." Stasi shoved at me again, shaking my backpack in annoyance.

"You gonna tell us where you crept off to, then?" Darren pressed, giving me an odd look. "We saw you get in the car with the weird ones."

"Weird ones?" Jamie asked, raising his eyebrows at me. My cheeks suddenly turned scarlet, embarrassment washing over me. "Yeah Hazel, where _did _you go the other night?"

"Are you going to tell me what happened to your face?"

"Are you going to tell me what happened to yours?"

"Ouch!" I cried, knitting my eyebrows together and shoving him. "You're such an ass!"

"I'm kidding!" He cried, raising his hands in defense. "Why do you even bother freaking out? You know I think you're beautiful."

"Thank you." I said quietly, glancing up at him sheepishly. The rest of our group was suddenly quiet, Darren giving us another knowing look before slowly pulling away from the group, towing Anastasia behind him. Aaron clapped me on the back before splitting for the math department. Jamie bit his thumbnail, watching me curiously as we walked. I let my hair fall over my face, creating a drape between us that shielded my face.

"Hazel-"

"What happened to your face?" I asked again, nearly in exasperation as I stopped and turned to face him. Jamie clenched his jaw, the muscles in his cheek flexing slightly as he watched me. I studied his face, trying to find as many flaws as I could, trying to convince myself that he wasn't the most beautiful person I'd ever seen.

There were no flaws.

There was nothing wrong with him. Not even the thin cut running across one side of his cheek. If anything, it made him sexier, more disheveled and reckless looking. Jamie looked like the kind of kid you'd find in the corner of a bar, one that comes from a bad home and still somehow manages to have a good, salvageable soul. I was feeling something again, but it was not the cold. It was not goosebumps, or ice in my veins. It was warmth.

"Where did you go the other night?" he asked gently, his voice almost a whisper as he stared down at me with deep green-gold eyes.

"It doesn't matter," I smiled nervously, shaking my head. "I'm not the one who is injured, you are."

"In more ways than one." he added softly. My stomach fell heavily as I tried to swallow with a dry throat. I pulled my eyes away from him, the task nearly impossible as a mixture of emotions washed through me. Above all things, I was confused, unsure of what I wanted or if I was doing something wrong.

My hands balled up into fists as the hallway cleared quickly, Jamie still watching me.

"Do you want to go somewhere again?"

"No." I shot quickly, my voice a little more harsh than I had meant it to be. Jamie tilted his head and studied me.

"No more warlock visits, I promise."

"It's not that," I stammered, Jamie biting the inside of his cheek. "I jus have so much stuff to do and I-"

"I get it," he said shortly, staring down at his feet. "You have other stuff to do." His eyes flickered to the left and I followed his gaze, Rage and Cora standing at the end of the hall as if they were waiting for me. Gemma shot me an impatient look and I stared down at my feet, being tugged in two different directions.

"I just don't want to make you upset-"

"I'm not upset. I don't care. Do what you want. Just remember that I get one night."

"But maybe that's not the best ide-"

"One night," Jamie pressed sternly, raising his eyebrows at me as if I had no choice. "You promised to give me one night, and that's all I need."

"When?" I sighed, looking up at him slowly.

"Tomorrow. It has to be tomorrow."

"Wh-"

"You'll see. Just trust me, okay?"

"Alright." I grumbled, rubbing my forehead as we began to part separate ways. Jamie turned to watch me, walking backwards as he called my name.

"Hazel!"

"What?" I stopped, looking over my shoulder.

"You really are beautiful," he breathed, studying me again. "I saw your face when I told you and you just looked surprised but you should just know. You are."

My cheeks flushed scarlet again as I watched him walk away and disappear around the corner, Cora raising her eyebrows at me as I approached the other group.

"Who was that?" she demanded in her high-pitched voice, crossing her arms and raising a ginger eyebrow.

"He's annoying. He talks too much." Rage grumbled, pursing his large lips.

"Who cares?" Gemma asked in irritation. "He's hot."

I shot her a look, one that was met with an unapologetic expression.

"Why were you waiting for me?" I asked, following them down the Southside steps and into the Physical Activities wing. "We wanted to make sure you were still alive after the other night," Cora laughed, pausing outside of the classroom door. Gemma and Rage waved as they continued down the hall. "We knew you liked to drink but we didn't know you could take down _that _much."

"You knew I liked to drink?"

Cora's smile became slightly too forced for my liking as a dozen excuses ran through her mind at once. I crossed my arms, raising an eyebrow at her.

"Cas has wanted us to meet you since you blew up Creto's Institute," she admitted. "We'd seen you around and stuff, I mean _everyone _had seen you after you pulled that shit in the arena with the Felines, but it was like Cas was hooked after that."

"You know friends don't usually expose each other as stalkers, right?" I teased. Cora rolled her eyes.

"He wasn't stalking you...he was investigating."

"For?"

Someone cleared their throat behind us and Cora and I looked awkwardly over our shoulders as a teacher breezed past us, a knowing look on her face.

"Shouldn't you two be somewhere?" She asked acidly, tossing her hair over a shoulder as she strutted down the hallway.

"I'll show you where my foot should be." I grumbled, following Cora into the classroom.

As a rule of ignorance, everyone had to stare at us like we'd shot their mother because we'd walked through their class to get to the locker rooms. As if anyone in the room had actually given a fuck about how a Venus fly-trap gave birth. Mr. Orincola flickered a dirty look in our direction as I slithered between the desks.

It took me five minutes to change into my swimsuit, and another five to throw my freshly straightened hair into a messy bun. Cora followed me into the large grey room, the water in the swimming pool glittering as the sun cut through the large floor-to-ceiling windows. Ms. Gattini raised her eyebrows at us as we filtered in behind the rest of the half-naked students.

"You don't have to walk in twenty minutes late just so everyone will look at you, you know." Troy whispered behind me, leaning forwards as Ms. G rolled on and on about pool safety. I shifted back, grinning to myself and looking over my shoulder.

"I wasn't aiming for everyone," I teased quietly. "Just you."

"What took you so long anyways?" he pressed. Ms. G shot us another irritated look with her green, sick-looking milky eyes. I wondered for a moment if having to deal with teenagers every day was the reason she looked like that, or if she had just been _born _ugly.

I turned my head slightly to the side, not completely looking at Troy as I spoke quietly over my shoulder again.

"We were talking." I whispered simply.

"About?"

"Cas."

There was a pause after that, and for a moment I began to think the conversation was over as Ms. G's voice engulfed the entire stone room, her voice echoing off of the walls.

"I can't stand that guy."

"Who can?" I joked, trying to stifle a laugh.

"You, apparently! At least so I've heard." he nudged me. I cringed.

Alright class, let's go!" Ms. G shouted. The crowd of students groaned in near irritated unison as they began shuffling towards the diving boards.

"What the Hell are we doing?" I asked quietly. A tall, skinny blonde girl with wide green eyes answered.

"It's diving week. Maybe if you weren't late you would know what she was talking about."

"Your swimsuit looks like it was picked out by a blind sunday school teacher at the Goodwill, maybe if you ran your debit card more than your mouth, you would know what _I'm _talking about." I snapped, almost surprised at the intensity of my words. The blonde girl shot me a look before sulking away.

"Mr. Lafever," Ms. G called out, watching Cas as he tried to slink into the bleachers unseen. "You are not sitting out of my class again."

"But Ms-"

"I'm sure that your ankle is perfectly healed by now," Ms. G pressed, raising her eyebrows. "You have yet to step foot in this pool."

"For good reason..."Cas mumbled, following me into the line at the diving boards. I gave him a worried glance but he shrugged me off.

The first boy to jump was Jack Ceasar, and as he bounced up and down thirty feet above us, I silently wondered if his boobs were bigger than mine.

Maybe they'd just shrunk or something but I-

My thoughts were interrupted by a loud snap, followed by a loud scream, concluded by a loud splash. Water flew up into the air as Jack bellyflopped into the surface, waves rolling throughout the entire pool as he bubbled his way back to air.

"That was...alright, for your first time." Ms. G allowed, trying not to grimace in disgust as Jack rolled himself onto the pooldeck, manboobs wiggling as he panted on his back. Cora cracked up behind me as I shook my head.

"Ms. Cal de Hoya, since you think it's so funny, you can go next."

"She can't swim." Cas piped up behind me, his tone edged in defense.

"Fine," Ms. G gave a thin smile. "Then you can jump in after her."

The blood seemed to drain from Cas' face as his expression fell.

"You're not afraid of the water, are you?" I teased lightly, trying to understand his forlorn face. Cas flickered his eyes to me nervously.

"Something like that." he grumbled.

"Baby." Troy snickered, Cas glaring at him in annoyance.

"Troy!" Ms. G called. "Since you are eager to continue the conversation I have no choice but to remove you from it! Up the ladder, now."

"Uhhhh..."

"_Now."_

"What the Hell do I do?" Troy hissed, panicking as we moved towards the starting rung of the ladder. I shrugged wildly, trying to think of an excuse. If there was anything I _did _remember about Troy, it was the way he'd been able to save Stasi from falling into a tank full of mutated crabs in Creto's Institution games.

He'd frozen the entire thing .

"You can't...like...control it or anything?!" I whispered in exasperation, Troy shooting me a look.

"I think you're the LAST person to scold me about contro-"

"Less talking, more climbing!" The teacher barked, Troy rolling his eyes as he began to climb.

"Figure something out!" he pleaded, moving further and further above me. I nibbled on the inside of my cheek, trying to think of a million ways to keep the water from getting cold enough to freeze. There was me, of course, but unless I figured out a way to control this whole spontaneous combustion thing, I wasn't going to be much help.

Troy could always fall onto the _concrete, _but that would incite broken bones that we had no time to heal.

Also, people might question his intelligence should he completely avoid the ONE place he is allowed to land and opt for the concrete instead.

I bounced up and down on my heels in anxiety, Cas shooting me a worried glance as he made his way over to me.

"Are you okay?"

"Not exactly. I told them not to come to school with me! I told them I didn't want ANY unnecessary attention and yet here we are trying to figure out a-"

"What the Hell are you talking about?"

"The second Troy touches that water we're fucked."

"Why?"

"Because the entire thing is going to turn into a brick of ice and I don't think Ms. G would appreciate us turning her pool into a giant popsicle."

"What do you need?" he asked hastily, watching as Troy made it to the top rung and pulled himself onto the board. Troy moved shakily across the long plank, one foot in front of the other as he cast me a worried glance.

"A distraction." I decided quickly, gritting my teeth. Cas nodded, moving towards the teacher and limping wildly as if someone had just broken his foot. For a second I was distracted from the task at hand, trying not to roar with laughter as I watched him wobble back and forth in front of Ms. G. Cora knit her eyebrows together, shooting me a look as she supressed nothing but burst into tears from giggling so hard. People at this point were so focused on the two of them that Troy had decided now was the time to jump.

"Light." I murmured quietly, wiggling my toes. I could feel a sense of warmth start to rise up in them as I continued bouncing up and down as if that would help spread the heat.

I watched Troy fall through the air like a brick, timing myself before scooting to the back of the class and casually pouncing on him. Troy was taken by surprise at my actions, his eyes wide and confused as I literally knocked into him, the both of us crashing into the water as a tangle of limbs.

The second our bodies hit the water steam shot up like a spouting volcano, huge, puffy, white, clouds of air billowing upwards towards the ceiling. The sound of a thousand rattlesnakes echoed through the room as the water hissed at the feel of my heat and Cas' freezing skin. The pool felt strange around me, Troy patting my side lightly as a sign for me to open my eyes. I did.

He grinned at me, giving me a thumbs up and nodding in approval as giant bubbles danced to the surface above us. I rolled my eyes, praying no one had seen that we were the cause of the commotion. We padded to the surface quickly, the steam clouding us from the others in the room. People were crying and yelling and shouting as if someone had just been shot, and I silently reminded myself that any sort of change in the environment would set a group of teenagers off like a bombing.

"Drama queens." Troy grumbled, the both of us treading water as a girl tried to run for the door and slipped. I giggled at her.

"Let's go," I ordered. "Before anybody asks why you're hot enough to vaporize an entire pool."


	11. Captivating

**Lady in the Water Score-Prologue**

**Lady in the Water Score-The Healing**

**Hans Zimmer-Interstellar Main Theme**

* * *

"Can you at least give me a hint?" I whined, Jamie's hands clamped tightly over my eyes. He sighed in annoyance at my one hundredth time asking, and I could practically feel him shaking his head as he laughed at me. "How come we had to do this TONIGHT?"

"Because there's a full moon tonight."

"So?"

"So some things only work on the full moon. I thought you would know this by now."

"You're not gonna feed me to a werewolf are you?"

"Just keep walking."

"We've been walking for _forever._"

"This is not entirely true. Forever is an awfully long time."

"Which is exactly why I said it."

"This is the closest you've come to forever? Seriously?"

"You're saying it like...like it's an _event _or something."

"It _is_ an event!" Jamie cried, as if it were impossible that I didn't understand. "Forever shouldn't just be a time bracket."

"I humbly apologize sir," I drawled. "Please explain to me: What is forever?"

"I can't truly explain it without showing you." he said gently. I tensed at the many possibilities of what that meant, but pressed on with my question anyways.

"You can _try. _It sure would pass the time a lot faster."

"Maybe I don't want to pass this time," Jamie said stubbornly, picking me up and keeping the other hand over my eyes so that he could lift me over a thick tree root. "Maybe this is my forever. Just wandering around with you aimlessly."

"Sounds like a terrible way to spend the rest of your existence." I grumbled.

"To you, maybe."

I only knew a few things. I knew that it had taken me nearly two hours to pick out a pretty enough outfit to wear on our "night" -which, get this, was to walk through the freaking _forest _of all places- even though it had been a total waste of clothing. Stasi had demanded, at minimum, another hour to straighten my hair and weave glitter into the crown braid that she'd given me, pinning much of the back into a low bun at the nape of my neck with a few free, loose strands. I also knew that it was almost midnight, something that was so bewilderingly irritating that I had almost decided to lock myself in my room and not come at all. Who takes somebody on a date at midnight?

"Forever should be a moment, or a feeling. Not a time span."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because nine times out of ten, when someone says forever, they're saying it because they want something they love to last. Marriage, a night out with friends-"

"The entire Breaking Bad series." I finished, Jamie snorting at me in irritation.

"Hazel I'm _serious_."

"Why?"

"Why what?" he asked, heaving me over another thick root. Was that grass I felt tickling against my knees as he set me down? Who the Hell lets their grass grow that tall?

"Why are you being so serious? It's killing me."

"I know it is," Jamie said easily. I could picture him chewing on the inside of his cheek the way he did when he got nervous. "But I only have one shot at this. So I want to make it good."

I took in a deep breath, trying to calm my heart down as it tried to beat out of my chest. Whatever Jamie was doing, was pointless. It was idiotic to allow him to play out his fantasy of memories and feelings and whatever else he might have been grasping at because I was with Cas now. Cas was the one I'd been losing my mind with in the middle of the club, Cas was the one I looked forward to seeing every morning.

But Cas wasn't here now.

And when Cas wasn't in the room, or if Cas didn't show up to school, I didn't worry. Not like I did with Jamie.

The point was that although Cas' presence was sought out by me every morning, his absence wasn't bothersome. Jamie had been around so often that I'd just gotten used to him always being there and assumed he'd be around every morning I woke up. When he left, though, it kept me in a state of panic.

"I have a question." I decided after a few more moments. Jamie hesitated.

"What is it?"

"Why are you bothering with me?"

"What?"

"Not bothering me, bothering WITH me. If you know I don't remember anything, and I'm this huge bitch to you and I've been...well I've been busy and I keep setting parts of your house on fire-"

"First of all, the Institute is _your _house too, whether you believe it or not," Jamie argued, interrupting me with an edge. "Secondly, you are not a bitch. You're a good person, and I know this for a fact. Granted it's hard to get you to admit it, you care about a lot of the people at the Institute and you'd fight for them at the drop of a pin. That's not a bitch."

"I'm mean."

"Says who?"

"Nobody has to say it," I argued. "I just know."

"Then why do you do it?"

"Because I don't want anyone to come near me." I shot honestly, the truth of my own words startling me. I had grown accustomed to lying my way out of uncomfortable questions and here I was spouting my soul like Jamie had found the magic faucet.

"I know what you're thinking," Jamie said gently, grabbing my hand and lifting me upwards. He dropped it soon after, leaving it rather cold. "You're thinking you're a bad person. That Magnus' carpet and the school are all results of you being some kind of monster fuck-up."

I did not answer.

"Well you're not," he continued. "We're all a little rough around the edges."

"You're not." I grumbled in irritation.

"Why do you say that?"

"Mr. I'm so perfect with my perfect face and perfect fighting and perfect destiny."

"You think I have a perfect face?"

"Is that seriously all you got from what I just said?"

"Kidding, kidding. Jeez, Hazel I wish you could remember."

"I-"

"I know what you said about me continuing to bother you with the same words but I just had to say them again. You have no idea how much more clear this would be."

"Make it clear for me, then," I demanded, letting him place me on the ground and turn me towards him. "Since I'm so blind." I waved a hand at his, which were still covering my eyes.

"My destiny is the farthest thing from perfect," Jamie said gently. "It may turn out perfectly for everyone else, but not for me. And not for anyone around me."

"Yet here you are, trying to draw me back into a dangerous fate." I teased dramatically.

"Is it working?"

I was silent again, the tone of his voice making me forget how to speak properly. Jamie kept one hand over my eyes although I still faced him.

"I know keeping you away might be better," he admitted hoarsely. "But I don't know who for. It may be selfish of me to want to keep you but you're the only person I haven't quite lost yet."

"Yet?"

"At this rate, I'm not positive you'll stick around."

"Jamie Lightwood, where has your confidence and ever-steady bravado gone?"

"Down the drain." he laughed.

"Since when?"

"Since you woke up and didn't remember my name."

I was silent again.

"That's a good example of forever, actually," he laughed, humorlessly. "It's like a moment when everything seems to real to be real. One of those moments where you have to double-check you're not dreaming because good or bad it's so _impacting _it just...here, let me show you."

"Show me?" I asked, Jamie turning me around. There was warm light surrounding me as if I were bathing in the middle of the sun, heat and life seeping through my skin like the sweetest poison I had ever experienced. The air smelled like pine needles and vanilla, and I could hear the trickle of water somewhere far away.

"This," Jamie whispered, lifting his hand away from my eyes. "Is forever."

My mouth fell open, my entire body humming with energy as I took in the forest before me. Golden light splashed over nearly every surface, pouring out from the trees and the thick leaves that covered the ground like thick masses of lightning bugs. Heavy, dark brown trees grew tall enough to intimidate New York skyscrapers, the ground littered with thick roots and heavy, dark green, leaves. I looked back at Jamie, who watched my face with uncertainty as I took in the scene before me. As soon as I smiled, so did he.

Clusters of flourescent pinks and purples littered the bushes, white sheets of flowers dangling from the trees above.

"Oh my God." I breathed, laughing in disbelief. I ran my hand down the thick trunk of a tree, golden glitter brushing off into my palm as it went. "Where the Hell are we?"

"Brocelind Forest." Jamie said quietly. My eyebrows shot up, my head snapping in every direction as my body tensed.

"Jamie, we're not allowed to be he-"

"We are if you'll be quiet!" he laughed. "No one knows we're here. Not even the others."

"You don't think anyone will tell that we're in Idris?"

"Nobody knows where this place is. Not even the vampires, not even the wolves. The only creatures we'll come across tonight are the ones that live in this part of the woods."

"Creatures?"

"You'll see soon. But I want to know something first."

"What?"

"You swear you don't remember the first time we met, so I want to know about the second," Jamie said quietly, glancing over at me. "I want to know what you first thought."

"I thought you were crazy." I admitted, making a face at him. Jamie rolled his eyes.

"Really? That's it?"

"Well I want to know what you thought about _me."_

"I thought...you had pretty skin." he said quietly.

"Nice hair." I admitted.

"Eyes."

"Mouth."

"You had a great butt."

"Had?"

"Have."

"I liked your shoulders."

"I liked your eyes."

"You said that."

"I meant it."

The air was still for a second as he smirked down at me, raising an eyebrow. I cleared my throat, trying to find a reason to change the subject before we both wound up naked on the forest floor.

We walked together through the glittering trees, the light washing across his skin like a warm summer glow, giving his eyes a brighter hue than usual. I could finally see the fiery red highlights streaming through his bronze hair.

"What happened to your parents?" I asked gingerly. Jamie pressed his lips into a tight line.

"They died."

"I know they did. And I know it was my fault," I said quietly. "But I want to know why. And how. From your point of view."

Jamie sighed before hooking a few fingers around my elbow to stop me from walking. I turned to look up at him. He brushed his fingers against my collarbone, sliding down the side of my shirt slightly and letting his fingers skim over my golden-scarred shoulder.

"This is from a Rune," he said quietly. "Creto had one of his men draw it on you before he found out how powerful you were. He was hoping he could bind his will with yours."

"An alliance rune?"

"Sort of. Alliance runes are more of an equality thing. This was possession. He wanted to control you, not share his power with you."

"I thought Downworlders can't carry Marks."

"They usually can't, but you're not just a Downworler," Jamie smiled gently. "When you burned mine off the first time we met, I was surprised it didn't kill you. All it does is fade away with time," he continued, brushing his fingers over the crook of my elbow. "But this one was poisonous, and the only way to save you was to pass the mark onto someone else."

"Your mom."

"Yeah. Pleumon had a boy smother demon blood on the walls of the Accords Hall and a bunch of Creto's men got in, my Dad was the first to fight but we didn't make it to him in time."

"Jamie-"

"And when my Mom found out, she couldn't live without him. So she decided not to."

"I don't know how I can pay you back or-"

"It's not something you ask someone to pay you back for," Jamie said sternly. "I would never use that against you. They made their decisions, and I'm happy they did."

"Even after all this?"

"Even after all this." he answered softly, watching me.

"Tell me a story." I decided quietly, glancing up at him. Jamie stuck one hand in his pocket the way he always did, letting one awkwardly dangle between us.

"About what?"

"About me. Before..all this."

"Should it be a good story or a bad story?"

"You have bad stories?" I cringed, making a face. Jamie laughed, running his free hand through his hair.

"Nah, not _too _bad. Just a couple times you've nearly gotten yourself killed."

"How did you put up with me?" I asked incredulously.

"You were funny," he shrugged. "You still are. You just have this absolute refusal to listen."

"Sounds like someone else I know." I crossed my arms, raising my eyebrows at him. Jamie grinned.

"Whaaaaat?" he asked innocently, his voice raising an octave.

"Let's hear it." I demanded gently again. Jamie nodded, looking about the forest ahead of us as we continued walking. I ran my fingers against a bush of bright orange tiger lilies that sprang forth from the leaves like firecrackers.

"Well, there was this time you did a striptease in front of an entire club," Jamie shrugged, laughing as my mouth fell open. "Yep, good old Glimmer. You gave us a distraction so we could interrogate one of Creto's men."

"Glimmer? Like the Downworlder club?"

"Yes ma'am."

I was quiet for a moment, Jamie watching me and biting the inside of his cheek.

"I was there the other night," I said quietly, clearing my throat. I was suddenly ashamed. "With Gint and the others I mean."

"I know." he said softly, giving me a small, somewhat sad smile as I looked up at him in surprise. We studied each other for a moment, waiting to see who would speak up first. His eyes were just...so..._exasperating_, I could feel myself wishing I'd had a different, prettier color of my own so that he wouldn't get bored while I was hypnotized.

"You followed me." I said quietly, very matter-of-factly. Jamie bit his lip and nodded sheepishly, still not taking his eyes off of me.

"I did."

"Do you do that often?"

"Just...maybe once a week. Every couple days." he said softly, every trace of conceit gone from his expression.

"Why?"

"Because I miss you."

I watched his face, searching for any hint of a lie that I could because there was no way in Hell someone like this could miss someone like _me_. I was surprised that anyone could miss me at all, really, especially if they had any other friends.

Jamie wasn't lying.

At least not badly enough for me to tell. We had stopped walking. The golden light continued washing over the planes of his face and I was suddenly very aware that I wasn't half as beautiful as he was, overcome now with worry of what I looked like to him. He didn't look disappointed, or disinterested, at least. I tried to push past the idea of how I looked and focused on him instead.

"The first time I saw you, you were at school. Not Pinewood, but some school in Missouri," he said quietly. "You were with some asshole, and you looked exactly like Maia. You still do, a little, except Simon says you're starting to look more and more like Jordan every day. Just like Taz. You were such a brat," he laughed, shaking his head and running a hand over his face. "God you were such a brat but it was so _funny._"

"What happened?"

"It was your birthday, so I followed you to your little dinner thing with all your rich, annoying friends and they sucked. Really, they did. I wanted to see you."

"Why?"

"Because you were different. You melted a spoon with your bare hands because you got so irritated with me, it was crazy. Stasi kept telling me all these stories on the way to go get you but I didn't know it was actually _true_ and then you followed me and Aaron's dumbass just-"

"Breathe!" I laughed, grabbing his arms. Jamie shook his head, looking down at his feet before grabbing my elbows and pulling me into him, wrapping his arms around my back. He buried his face in my neck, surprise washing over me when I hugged him back without hesitation, clinging to him like my life depended on it. I was thinking about Cas, but not in the sense that I wanted him there. I was thinking of how different it felt to have someone just as warm and lively and energetic touch my skin and hold me like they needed me.

Jamie pulled away slightly, pressing his forehead against mine and rubbing his thumbs over the skin of my arms.

"Jamie..." I whispered warningly, flickering my eyes up to him. I wasn't sure what would happen. I wasn't sure of what I _wanted _to happen, but I knew the way he set me off-good or bad-was intense. Casper had a way of making me feel things inside of my own skin, but the outside world was the one always facing the consequences of me and Jamie's interactions. Magnus'scarpet, Stasi's lightbulbs, it was never good.

It _felt _good but it was wrong, and the more he told me about myself and whispered stories into my ear, the both of us standing in the middle of a golden forever with light splashing across every inch of our bodies, I realized that I was willing to let the world suffer every known consequence known to man for our actions if it meant that I could stay here with him and never leave.

"I love you," he said quietly. "And I get that it's complicated and you can't say it back but you don't _have _to say it back because when you really love somebody you just want them to know."

I sucked in a heavy breath, watching him as he leaned in towards me. I was going to let him do it. I could feel the hum rising in my body, my skin starting to tingle as he came closer to me. It was going to happen. He was going to-

A high-pitched, annoying beep filled the air, Jamie opening his eyes slowly and glancing at his watch mysteriously. He looked up at me and rose an eyebrow, a small smile spreading across his face.

"Midnight," he said softly. "Pixies can only come out on the full moon."

I glanced up at the sky, the glowing clouds separating over the face of the moon as it began illuminating the sky at it's highest peak. The dust among the heavy green leaves and bark of the trees began to rise slowly, humming and shimmering in clusters before moving like bits of glitter in the air. These bits of glitter sprouted wings, so small they could fit in the palm of your hand as they rose around us at our feet, in the trees, in the flowers, the entire forest awash with golden light as they danced in the air. They were free, warm, little creatures, bowing and dipping and waltzing as if we weren't even there.

I looked back to Jamie, who was studying my face again with an intensity that was almost impossible to match on a daily basis, although tonight I didn't imagine it would be hard. I stared back at him, letting him pull me in before his lips brushed against mine, his hands holding the back of my arms tightly as I melted. I had never been so warm in my life, and this was coming from someone who was practically made of fire.

I looped my arms around his neck, tangling a set of my fingers in his hair as his hands slid down my waist. I wanted to be as close to him as I possibly could, the edges of my vision blurring wildly as his lips kept working against mine. It was like my body was being pulled into two different directions, one half yanked into the past while one begged to stay in the future, although it didn't matter because both paths of time were leading me to Jamie. They were leading me to my bedroom in Creto's Institute, Jamie smacking Ember out of my hand and pushing me against the wall. They were leading me to here, now, awash with golden, buzzing light with hundreds of fluttering faeries waltzing around us as we kissed.

This was what forever felt like, as cheesy as it sounded. It was wanting to stay in one place for the rest of your life because it was filled with so much hope and light and warmth. It was filled with the _chance _of forever, because in a place like this it felt like you could never die. I wanted to stay.

I wanted to stay here with Jamie forever no matter how childish it made me seem because even if it felt impossible, I loved him.

Even if it felt wrong and rushed and I was too young, I loved him.

I did.


	12. Out of the Frying Pan

_Jamie pressed his lips against my forehead, locking me into a tight hug as I buried my face in his chest. His very scent began to stir a heat in the pit of my stomach that grew by the second._

_"I love you." he murmured softly into my hair. It was curly again, something I hadn't seen in almost a year. The constant tugging and manipulating and straightening should have absolutely destroyed it by now, but I suppose that was a perk of being fire-proof._

_"Look at me." Jamie ordered. I did. Jamie clenched his jaw, his golden-green eyes that had been burned into my mind like a tattoo studying me closely. "Have you fallen in love with the wrong person yet?"_

_"What?"_

_Jamie didn't answer, his fingers digging into my back as my skin began to warm rapidly. I could see my fingers glowing over his shoulder, the clothes burning and melting where my skin made contact._

_I jerked backwards, unable to break the grip we had on each other, Jamie's nails nearly puncturing the skin of my spine as he clung to me, his arms charring by the second. The flames licked around my fingertips, the back of his neck burning and burning, the smell of his skin stabbing at my nose and making me want to vomit._

_"Let go!" I screamed, still trying to yank myself away. My body wouldn't listen to me. I couldn't move my arms from around his neck, my fingers were still drumming absent-mindedly against his shoulder, my chest was still pressed tightly against his. "Let go!"_

_Jamie's fingers were turning grey, the tips of them floating away in bouts of ash as he burned. He began to disappear by the second, his wrists, his arms, the grey spreading up his neck and across his collarbones until the only color left in him were the lovely pair of green-gold eyes that still watched me in horror._

_"I'm sorry," I whispered horrified, tears spilling over my cheeks as I clung to his disintegrating body. "God, Jamie I'm so sorry please just-just..."_

_There was nothing left of him. My arms were wrapped around air, hanging there as if his body still existed in that space. Bits of ash and ember floated around me like snow, my eyes locked on the area where he used to be. _

_"Funny thing, fire."_

_I whipped around, a slinky, tar-like creäture lounging lazily in front of me. Her skin was slick and shiny like black rubber, trails of liquid fire crackling through her skin like lava. She ran her skinny fingers through her slicked-back hair. _

_"Who the Hell are you?"_

_"At this point? I'm you best God-damned friend."_

_"I don't even know you." I spat._

_"Oh you know me," the woman laughed. "You know me very, very well."_

_I watched as her eyes flashed a brilliant orange, the skin of my arms beginning to tingle as they caught fire. My skin seemed to burn through itself like glass, my veins showing clearly like highways of fire in the night. The tips of my fingers began to grey, turning to ash and floating away gently just like Jamie had._

_"Stop," I panicked, watching myself disintegrate. "Stop!"_

_The woman laughed, flashing her eyes again. Within seconds my hands were back to normal, the fire gone underneath my skin. _

_"Oh stop your whining."_

_"You're fucking insane."_

_"The best people are," she murmured, raising an eyebrow at me. "You'll find it out soon enough."_

_"What do you want from me?" I hissed._

_"Want from you? Oh, child. I am you."_

_"You look like the Swamp Monster's girlfriend," I spat. "I know I'm not the greatest looking but I'm sure as Hell a lot better than you."_

_"So cheeky," she grinned. "Probably one of the reasons it chose you."_

_"Chose me?"_

_"Not one of its best decisions, I can easily say that."_

_"What is it? You mean the-"_

_"Gift," the woman said harshly, annoyance flooding her tone. "For some reason, out of all people, it chose an ignorant 17 year-old girl to protect."_

_"Hasn't done much protecting lately, I can tell you that."_

_"It brought us back from the dead," the woman laughed, surprised at me. "What more could you want?"_

_"You mean you have it too?"_

_"Not like you," the woman answered somewhat grudgingly. "It was given to me. You were born with it. I was beginning to think that was the cause of your stability as a host, but after hearing of your little meltdown in which you set an entire demention on fire, I'm not so sure."_

_"That was an accident."_

_"Isn't it always?"_

_"You said I was a stable host," I started gingerly. "That means there's been others before me?"_

_"Just me," The woman hissed, clenching her jaw before regaining composure. "I was the only one Nathaniel felt was worthy."_

_"Because he loved you."_

_"He condemned me to Hell!" she shrieked suddenly, her outburst causing me to jump backwards. Flames exploded from her skin like a firecracker, her heat washing over me like a solar flare. "HE DEFILED ME."_

_"He tried to save you!" I shouted back, a sudden bravery causing goosebumps to raise along my arms. _

_"Yes," she whispered, a deadly calm washing over her as she closed the distance between us in a flash, her nose pressed against mine. "By kissing me," she spat. "By loving me. By trying to free me."_

_"Why are you so hateful?"_

_The woman paused for a moment, the fire licking through her skin like lava, burning and billowing brightly as she cracked her neck._

_"Because it's all I know."_

_"You shouldn't be so angry. Not when someone tried so hard to save you. The story said you loved him."_

_"Love, hate...it's all the same in the end," the woman murmured. "Either you learn to hate them on your own, or you love them long enough to have them taken from you."_

_"You went crazy. That wasn't his fault."_

_I watched her as she paced back and forth, trying to collect herself. It was the first time during the entire conversation that she didn't seem over-confident. _

_"It will happen to you too," she murmured, sounding more like she was trying to convince herself instead of me. "It will happen to you like it happened to me."_

_"It won't," I argued._

_"-happen to you just like-"_

_"It won't happen to me."_

_"-and it will be just like-"_

_"It can't happen to me!"_

_"-devour your soul-"_

_"Downworlders carry the ability to bear Marks. Just like Nephillim. Just like me."_

_The woman froze in her movements, an action that caused me to wonder if I had said the wrong thing. I had, and it was too late._

_"The Hybrid." the woman said quietly to herself, watching in amusement. The place we were in was making me sweat, heat trapping my body like a bodysuit, but as she watched me with such sudden interest a chill went down my spine. She circled me, scanning over every inch of my body and looking as though she was disappointed._

_"Oh yes," she mused, grinning sickly to herself. "It will happen to you."_

_"I just said-"_

_"I heard what you said, child. Your heritage will not protect you. If anything it makes you all the more useful."_

_"Why not just kill me now?" I challenged. "All this talk about how you need me dead and nothing to show for it. What do you want?"_

_"Were you not listening when I said you and I are the same person?"_

_"Were you not listening when I said you look like the Swamp Monster's gir-"_

_"I'm alive because of you, idiot," the woman spat. "But not for long."_

_"You need a body."_

_"I need a fucking soul," the woman laughed. "None of which are going to be available to me until the Blood Moon."_

_"You have to kill somebody."_

_"Oh no," she chuckled. "If that were the case I'd already have several at my leisure."_

_"Then what's the issue?"_

_"On my own, I'm not very powerful," she admitted sourly, gritting her teeth slightly. "But together? We're a fucking dream team. I need you to keep me going until you're dead."_

_"You just said you couldn't kill me on your own. If you let someone else do it, you'll die too. If I die, you die."_

_"Yes," she mused. "For now. After the Blood Moon you'll be completely useless to me."_

_"What's a Blood Moon?"_

_"Jesus Christ," the woman spat in irritation. "Have they told you nothing?"_

_"I-"_

_"Of course not. Because they're idiots, just like you are."_

_"Are you gonna fucking tell me or not?"_

_"Not now," the woman teased. "Not like this. Can't have you rushing off to tell your friends."_

_"What makes you think I won't tell them this? About this dream?"_

_"Because after I'm done with you, they'll never want to listen."_

_"You don't own me," I argued harshly, clenching my fists although there was a fear rising inside of me. "You won't have me."_

_The woman's brilliant eyes flashed again, rooting me to the spot. My legs were screaming to move, but were glued in place as if something had bound them together. The woman slithered over to me, ash and smoke following her like a shadow as she moved. I could hear the fire sizzling inside the cracks of her skin as she brushed her lips against mine, the heat of her face burning mine. She raised a few burning, dazzling, flickering fingers, pressing the tips of them against my breastbone where the skin began to sizzle. I wanted to scream._

_I wanted to run._

_"Silly girl," she said softly. "I already do."_

_Her fingertips exploded. _

_So did the inside of my soul._


	13. Into the Fire

My eyes snapped open as I lurched forwards, sucking in a massive gust of air as if it would stop the wildfire raging inside my soul. The flames started in the center of my breastbone, swirling and rising like a blossoming flower until pulling me upwards in the sheets and exploding, the force rattling every wall in the Institute. Books and perfume bottles and swords and shoes all clattered against each other and the floor as the building shook wildly, the fire crawling over my arms and torso like a colony of snakes.

There was a splitting pain in my head that felt like it was tearing me in half from the top of my skull to my toes, every nerve in my body yanking itself in two at once. My vision wasn't simply blurring the way it always had when I was trying to remember- it was shaking rapidly, a mass amount of painful scenes flashing before me like some kind of undirected, uncut, unrated film.

I could see myself at the age of six, one of my foster fathers cornering me in the bedroom with a bottle of booze in one of his hands and my underwear in the other.

I could see the first time I tried to run away from the system, living under one of the downtown bridges with a girl name Sarah who'd gotten shot two weeks later over a pack of cigarettes. I

saw myself at fourteen, swinging rapidly to the beat while holding a bottle of Ciroc and my first boyfriend's hand. I saw Genevieve.

I saw myself holding Anthony's hand and strolling past Jamie Lightwood on the first day I'd ever met him.

Every painful memory I'd ever tried to shove back into the pit of my mind was hitting me with full force, starting as early as I had begun to collect them. I screamed, another wave of heat rocking the building and melting the wall that separated my room from the hallway.

Students were scampering back and forth, Stasi directing traffic and shouting orders in her hot-pink silk pajamas. My entire room was a mess of flame and clutter, the door halfway-melted from its hinges when Jamie burst forward, swinging what was left of it open.

I looked at the boy standing before me, another searing mass of memories flooding my mind as he stood watching me, horrified in his black sweatpants. The light of the flames danced off of his features as he grabbed the door frame for support when the building rocked again, yanking it back at the mass heat.

Jamie tried to make his way around the fire several times, burning his left forearm before Aaron finally slid past the doorway, crawling back up the now slanted floor and grabbing Jamie by the leg. The two of them struggled, Aaron screaming at Jamie that he couldn't save me if he was dead too, and Jamie screaming back that none of it would matter if I died anyways.

I was hit with the sudden realization that I had inadvertently put this boy in more pain than he ever deserved.

The idea of how I looked made me sick. There I was, a mess of sheets and blood and memory and pain and tears and fire in the middle of my melting bedroom floor. I knew, as he watched on in terror, that he was reliving every nightmare I had experienced by my side.

The flames were taking my shape when I was a child, running from a screaming alcoholic for a foster mother. They were taking the shape of me, running through the back alleys at the age of seven with a bag of apples I'd stolen from the grocery store because I hadn't eaten in nearly a week.

The fire between us began to swirl and hiss like a living organism, archaic Latin being whispered into the air from the pit of the flames as they began to rise and take shape. I could make out slender shoulders, humming blue stripes, a massive golden-flickering body and swishing tail. There were ears, perked upwards as bright red eyes darted back and forth. Hades Felines, as clear as I had seen them in Creto's arena, had sprung from my own flame. I had created them, somehow, someway, and they roared wildly, challenging Jamie to come any closer.

"Go!" I screamed, the big cats advancing on him as he looked desperately towards me. "GO!"

Jamie was still hesitating.

"Hazel-"

I meant to order him away once more, but the moment he said my name another flash of pain sent shivers down my spine, throwing me against the floor on my back as I arched my body, twitching almost inhumanily as I cried out. Another flare of heat and force flew from my body, so strong that Jamie went crashing across the hallway and into the next room. The cats screeched in hunger, darting into the damaged hall and attacking anything in sight.

Rolling to my side, I could see Xavier Denim being dragged across the blood-streaked floor by his ankle, fire sprouting from the Feline's mouth and winding up his leg like a vine. I whimpered fearfully, praying to God it was only a dream. No. This pain was too real. It hurt too much for this to be a dream.

Every time I thought I was coming closer to some sort of end or light at the end of the tunnel, another hidden memory crashed against my conciousness, snapping me back to reality. The floor was so warm that I could feel it caving in underneath me, sagging like wet paper under my weight as the rest of my room burned.

I pushed upwards on the heel of my palm, willing myself to move, praying to God I would either die right then and there or live long enough to die anywhere _but _here. My legs moved numbly underneath me as I crawled towards the door, the foundation of the Institute shuddering again and creaking, half of it shattering underneath the unstable weight. The entire room was tilted sideways, books slamming into every part of my body as I gripped the bottom of the doorframe to keep myself from sliding into the closet.

The wood began sinking, melting underneath my touch. I had to move.

The hallway was streaked with blood and fire and glass, a few students still running past me and trying not to get burned as they tripped over themselves, flying wildly across the carpet. The wood underneath my hand gave way, snapping in half.

I gasped, dropping nearly twenty feet to what should have been the wall at the end of the corridor. Something in my back cracked, nearly making me sick as I groaned, the fire still raging over my body as I tried to keep consciousness.

One of my ribs separated from the sternum, pulling a screech out of my throat that was so gutteral it didn't even sound like my own. I panted hysterically, the rest of my ribcage pushing forwards as if something were trying to push it's way out, my body lurching forward, my shoulder blades pressing into the ground as my toes began to curl in pain. I could feel my fingernails digging trenches into my palms, as if I were trying to disappear within myself and find a place to hide.

There were many times I had come close to death. Playing the line of danger was something that I had become accustomed to. This was different. This was so unimaginably painful that finding the right words to describe it seem almost impossible.

Every single memory that I had tried to bury in the past, all the one-off one-night-stands, all the sexual assaults by father figures that were supposed to be there to protect me, every rejection, every fall, every brush with the edge of a sword, every tear, it was all washing over me like a 300 foot wave, crashing against the pit of my soul so hard it rocked every nerve in my body. My hands were shaking as the intensity of both the fire and my pain grew, the two becoming synonymous with time.

Every inch of me was covered in flame, the floor creaking angrily beneath me before finally giving out. I shut my eyes, one last scream escaping from my throat as a last bout of pain and pressure exploded from my chest, sending me crashing through the wood.

The only thing I could hope for was to fall to my death.


	14. On the Other Side

***Stasi POV***

**Two Steps From Hell- Black Blade**

* * *

It was like a demolition ball had flung through the side of my bedroom wall. The mirror exploded, shards of glass raining down on me like meteors as I scampered out of bed, landing on my hip in the itchy carpet. I threw my hands over my head, Hazel's screaming voice seeping through the wall with her heat as it melted nearly everything it touched.

I had only been awake for a few seconds but I was sweating like a whore in church. It was an odd expression, dating back into the 60's. Who had decided it was okay to mock whores for being uncomfortable in church? Who knew that whores even went to churches? If I was a whore, which shouldn't be defined the number of people you do or don't sleep with, would I want to go to church to redeem myself? Or would I feel like my uncomfortable nature was penance for my promiscuity?

My thoughts were interrupted when my favorite black dresser tipped over, the corner of it landing on my calf as clothes and perfume spilled out onto the floor. I shrieked, trying to lift the heavy piece of furniture off of my body as people began spilling into the hallway, their voices creeping underneath my bedroom door.

"Help!" I called, Hazel still screeching in the room next to me. What was I going to do? Was it better to get the dresser off and go save her? Or save myself? Or save anyone who needed saving _except _Hazel because just being in the room next to her made me feel like I was going to melt? Could I even save Hazel if I wanted to? Did I want to? Of course I wanted to, she was my best friend. But what if she tried to kill me? What if she tried to kill us all?  
"HELP!" I screamed again, trying to wriggle my hips in defiance as beads of sweat began rolling down my face.

Hazel screamed again. The wall separating our rooms exploded, wood splintering wildly across the room. One of the boards soared into the air above me, scratching the spot above my right eyebrow when it landed. I screamed again, feeling around for Elephant, or my phone, or ANYTHING for that matter.

The board began creaking, a pair of thick, tan fingers curling over the edge. I could hear someone groaning on the other end as the air rushed through my lungs to rapidly to be healthy. The average human breathes 12 to 24 times a minute. I was taking in about 35.

Taz grunted, lifting the board over his shoulder and heaving it to the other side of the room. In any other circumstance, his constant texting and calling and asking where I was would've made me irritated with his very presence. Even though I had made the mistake of tonguing him down at Jack's party and drunkenly telling him I thought he was cute, I was happy to see him.

His golden face was a mixture of irritation and fear, probably because he hated being woken up, and also because he thought I may have been dead. If I had been, what would he have done? Would he have cried? Would he have told me he loved me? Tons of men had told me they loved me, but never right before I died. Had any of them meant it?

"Anastasia," he breathed, his voice dripping with fear as he cupped my sweaty face in his hands. Ugh. I must have looked disgusting. "Come on, look at me. Are you okay?" I liked the way he said my name, even though he was the only one besides my parents who used the full version. I coughed, the dust and wood particles clouding my lungs as I groped at his arms, pointing down to the dresser on my leg as the heat grew stronger.

Hazel screamed again, this time so loudly I cringed, both of us snapping our heads towards the wall. It was melting. Literally, in the most honest sense, melting. It looked like a chocolate bar in the prime of summer.

"Holy shit." Taz breathed, awe-struck. I couldn't tell if he was afraid that this was his sister's doing, or impressed. Or both. The human brain has a very strange way of interpreting information. Taz moved to the dresser, inspecting it quickly before turning back to me.

"This is gonna hurt," he said cautiously, sweat dripping from his chin. "Just bear with me a second, okay?"

I nodded ferociously, sort of wishing he would just do the damn thing already so we could be out of there. The muscles in his arms flexed as he grunted again, the dresser shifting slightly. He paused, out of breath. It was too hot in here for him to move it himself. Even with the human phenomena that we were, being half-angel didn't keep him from getting exhausted.

"Go," I ordered weakly, panting as the air grew thicker around us. People were still screaming in the hallways. "You're gonna burn in here if you don't leave." Taz's eyes flickered to the corner of the room where the carpet had caught fire. He shook his head wildly.

"No."

"Taz-"

"I'm not going."

"This isn't a comic book! You will die in here!" I shouted, a little too harshly. I promised I would never pick on him for the comic-book thing, but being rude was the most affective way to get someone to abandon you. Psychology Today said so, I read it last week.

"I know what this is," he breathed, looking at me. Even with no extensions, and no makeup, and sweat, he stared right at me, unflinching. "And I'm not going. Not unless you're with me."

I studied him for a minute, smoke quickly filling the room as we wasted time. For the first time in my life, I was thoughtless for a few seconds.

"One last try," I demanded. "If it doesn't work, you go."

"Fine."

We counted to three, Taz gripping the top of the dresser so tightly his knuckles turned white.

"One."

"Two."

"Go!"

We both pushed, the wood sliding down my leg far enough for Taz to yank me out. I was exhausted, nearly collapsing in his arms as he heaved me up to my feet. This was definitely not the time for a Gone with the Wind moment, so I pushed through, one of my arms slung around his shoulders as we limped towards the door, flinging it open.

The entire hallway was crowded with scared kids, Jamie going from door-to-door in the corridor to find more missing kids. Immediately, without second thought, I began telling everyone where to go. That was the thing about being brilliant, even when you didn't know what you were doing, you knew what you were doing.

Hazel screamed again, knocking half of the Institute onto it's side, tables and portraits and teachers all sliding down the hallway. I lost Taz somewhere. Jamie threw the door open to her room seconds before I was on my ass, slipping down the hall with the rest of them. Before I hit the ground, Taz yanked me by my side, pulling me into an empty room.

"You can stop throwing yourself at me any day now." he grinned, earning himself a glare. We crawled across the wall/ground, trying to avoid any and all collapsing furniture before Taz kicked out a window. He leapt out first, helping me into one of the trees that led down to the street.

Even with the Glamour covering the entire Institute and everything around it, every Mundane in Brooklyn could see that our building was on fire. I could see Aaron running around fretfully with several of the teachers, casting Enchantments over the sidewalks to keep the humans, and what they could see, at bay. To them, it was just an old church on fire.

But everyone else knew the truth.

It had come out of nowhere, like some sort of silent firework. I knew it was Hazel, because no one else could've managed to produce a reign of fire like that- not even Darren with his constant mixing of potions and blowing things up. The sidewalks cornering the Institute were littered with terrified students and teachers, some of them so messed up that even I couldn't heal them.

"Heav-"

"I called Magnus five minutes ago," she answered breathlessly, seeming to read my mind. Reading minds was something that even Mundanes could manage to do, although I found it disgusting that many of them only liked to pretend so that they could weasel their own kind out of money. What kind of creature hustles its own kind? Although I figured it wasn't fair of me to judge considering I'd hustled men out of hundreds of dollars as if I even needed it.

My thoughts were racing a million miles faster than usual, which was really saying something considering no one could ever keep up. The sirens on the firetrucks wailed as if their noise could put out the flames engulfing our home. The bright red and blue lights flashed like a warning sign- although as I watched half of our building collapse in on itself, I made a silent comment that the warning was too late.

I pushed through the crowd, silently counting the number of people I slid by.

"207," I panted, reaching Mrs. Penhallow. "I counted 207 but that does not include the Denims, Johanna, the Lutherans, the Blakes the-"

"Just be content that we saved who we saved," Mrs. Penhallow scolded, her poorly dyed blonde hair falling loosely in her face. "We'll do what we can once we put the fire out but I fear at this moment there's nothing we can do."

"If we don't stop her now she's gonna burn the entire place down," Taz shouted, pushing his way over to us. "Someone has to go in there."

I studied him, watching the red and blue flashing lights flicker across his tan skin. His eyes were a brilliant brown and green, but they were worried. I wondered for a moment if his eyes ever looked that way when they were worried about _me, _but then I realized it wasn't about me. It was about the Institute.

Taz ran a hand through his thick black hair and I pulled my hands up to his face, rubbing away the soot on his cheek with one of my thumbs. He seemed just as surprised at the action as I had.

"Jamie!" someone called. I snapped my head in the direction of Heaven's voice and found the two of them embraced tightly in the front yard. Between the glass littering the ground around them and the missing window two stories above, I made the conclusion that he'd jumped.

"I don't know what the Hell happened to her." he breathed. My Daddy pushed his way through the crowd with Mom and Ella in tow, all of them sandwiching me in a hug as Mom ran her hands all over my face and body, looking for any injuries.

"I'm fine, I'm fine!" I insisted trying to brush them off of me.

"What happened to your ankle?" Mom demanded, pointing to the growing bruise.

"The dresser," I coughed, Daddy rolling his eyes. "It fell on me."

"I told you not to buy that damned thing." He grumbled, stroking my cheek.

"It's okay," I breathed. "Really. Taz came and got me." Taz's cheeks turned scarlet, even under all the soot. Daddy raised his eyebrows, the corner of Mom's mouth twitching upwards. "If it wasn't for him I'd still be up there."

"I mean I-"

"Thank you." Mom breathed, locking him into a hug and pressing her lips against his cheek. "Thank you, thank you, thank you."

Jamie was pacing back and forth while Mom obsessed over her new personal hero. Daddy was rolling his eyes and grumbling something about boys. Where was Aaron? Oh, still casting Enchantments. The firefighters talked numbly to themselves unaware of what was really going on and why the fire wouldn't subside.

"We can't just leave her up there," Jamie insisted, allowing me to take his arm and inspect it. Partial-thickness burn. Otherwise known as second degree. Occurs and is classified by the reddening or darkening of skin along with blisters, tenderness, and searing pain. Can cause nerve damage if not quickly treated. "We can't just leave her."

"Darren!" I called. It was loud outside, but I'd still hoped he would hear me. Since I was never wrong, he had. Within minutes of my instruction, he was searching for a First Aid kit. A warlock would've been nice too, but we hadn't run into much of those lately, and Magnus...hadn't Heaven said Magnus was already on his way? Yes. Yes she had. Back to Hazel.

"We can't let her burn out," I declared. "There's something wrong."

"Someone's severely pissed off." Troy panted behind me. "No one knows what happened?"

"She's not angry," I corrected. "The tones in her voice weren't of anger. They suggested more of a painful, wretched kind of feeling. Something bad is happening to her."

"She'll be okay in the fire though, right?" he asked desperately. "I mean since she can control it and everything?"

"Control is a subjective term and can't be used here," I corrected again. "If she was in control this wouldn't have happened. She can sustain remarkable temperatures, that's true, but it's unclear what her limit is. We were both there when she burned down the first Institute, and that nearly killed her. This is twice as bad."

Cas and Gint were pushing their way into our crowd now, although their place of residence was unclear to me, I assumed it was somewhere on 24th and Breakin Avenue. The fire had started twenty minutes ago, the fire department had been notified 15 minutes ago, so assuming one of them was on watch the way one of us always was, they could only live ten minutes away if they needed five minutes to get dressed, which they were.

"We don't have enough fucking time for this." Jamie snapped angrily, Daddy shooting him a look. I wasn't angry at Jamie for being snippy. There was only one girl I was positive that he had ever had feelings for, and that was Hazel. It sucked to lose the only person you ever cared about. I would know. I was thinking about Thomas again, and his shiny hair, but then another window exploded and I came back to reality.

"Troy could go," Jamie suggested. "Aren't you made of ice or some shit?"

"Troy has the ability to control fire," I agreed. "But I've never seen him use his cryokinesis to completely freeze himself. It would be like throwing an ice cube in a barbecue pit. Useful, but not really."

"Thanks." Troy grumbled. I narrowed my eyes at Gint, who seemed far too entertained at this travesty for my liking.

"Cas could go."

They all looked at me in a mixture of confusion and irritation, the irritation mainly coming from Jamie's end.

"What the Hell are you talking about?" Gint demanded rudely, although I hadn't been speaking to him.

"Cas contains power negation. It's the ability to subdue someone's natural or elementally given powers by any means necessary."

"What the Hell does that even mean?" Taz asked confusedly.

"It means he finds a way to counteract someone's abilities by creating an ability of his own." I stated obviously. Why was it that I always had to explain myself twice to people? Cas looked impressed, Daddy looked proud, Ella looked like she was about to smack someone if she wasn't allowed to go back to sleep, Gint looked annoyed, along with Jamie, and Taz was looking at me like I was God: but I just assumed that was because I wasn't wearing a bra.

Obviously they still weren't understanding.

"Hazel is fire. We need ice. Troy doesn't haven ENOUGH ice,"

"I have plenty of ice." Troy grumbled, crossing his arms and turning to watch the fire.

"Cas will make enough ice, and extra, because it's what he does."

"Whatever it takes," Jamie grimaced, wincing as I placed a wet bandage over his burn. It was the first time I'd seen him look at Cas with anything besides irritation or disgust. "Please just get her out of there."

Cas shrugged off his jacket, looking more nervous than I'd ever seen him.

"Fine," he agreed, he and Jamie nodding at one another. "Whatever it takes."


	15. Guardian

***Cas POV***

**Divergent Score-Dauntless Attack**

* * *

I was terrified. I wasn't going to admit that in front of the Brooklyn Circle (that's what we called Anastasia and her pack of Nephillim traitors), but I genuinely was afraid. Even Jamie, who was wrongly assumed to be the Chosen One, looked scared. I hated him, and at any other given time probably would've tried to think of some way to insult him even though insults weren't something I was particularly good at.

I tried to ignore the stabbing wonder in the back of my mind that asked if saving Hazel meant she'd just run back into his arms. It had felt like she'd liked me, but you never knew with girls like her.

Since seeing her at Creto's Institute I'd known she was the one I was supposed to be after as a guardian.

I hadn't told anybody, not outside of my Circle at least, and I hadn't planned too either.

Anastasia probably knew. I shrugged off my jacket, meeting her eyes again in the flash of red and blue sirens. She had a way of looking at people as though she already knew their life story, including their futures. I wouldn't be surprised. She was the smartest person I'd ever met in my entire life, and had somehow still managed to be more shallow than a kiddy pool.

Gint nudged me in the back of my leg with his shoe, a silent way of saying "Good Luck". Most people would've been cynical at the lack of genuine support, but I'd known Gint long enough to understand that his capacity for affection wasn't as grand as some others. This was the best he could do.

I pushed my way through the crowd of Shadowhunters, some of them looking at me like I was an idiot for going towards the problem instead of running away from it. It was a dumb thing for them to think, considering our entire lives were built around running towards danger.

Danger.

It was hard to think of Hazel that way. I knew she could be a total bitch, and I knew she was a little rough around the edges even at her best, but I never imagined having to think of her as dangerous. After I died, the Higher Angels had told me what a trip she was going to be.

They tried to warn me she was going to be hard to handle, but I didn't want to listen to them. My job wasn't to see the best in everyone, but it seemed like that's all I could do. Even when "everyone" included a somewhat sociopathic seventeen-year-old girl with a demonic counterpart and tendency to blow things up/set them on fire.

Hazel screeched again, startling the firefighters.

"Are you sure you're going to be okay?" I turned around, looking down at the small, sweet girl who'd tugged on my shirtsleeve. Looking at her, you wouldn't guess that Cora could snap you in half with her bare hands. She looked up at me with wide, worried eyes and I rolled mine.

"You know I'll be fine."

"Be careful," she pressed. "Please? You have no idea what she could do. She could kill yo-"

"Cora," I said sternly. We'd had this discussion before. She knew full-well what being around Hazel meant for me. "This is my job."

"It's a dumb job." she pouted. I punched her lightly on the shoulder.

"It's the only reason I'm alive!" I called, grinning as I jogged towards the building.

I stopped in front of one of the wide, open iron doors, letting the heat sink through my pores. Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath. I tried to imagine the heat of Hazel's skin when it was close to mine, the way the warmth seemed to radiate off of her body. I could feel my own skin start to cool immediately, every muscle in my body getting rigid. Ice trickled down my spine, seeping through my veins and chilling each bone in my body.

My fingers curled over the side of the hot iron door, sizzling when they connected. It burned at first, a searing kind of pain that would've sent anyone else crashing to their knees. I ignored it, waiting for my skin to absorb the heat and dissolve it before moving on.

If there was anything I could say about the Brooklyn Circle, it was that they really knew how to pick their teammates. If Gint and I had known about Hazel, we would've gone after her long before the others did. When rumors start up about a Hybrid it's almost never random. They're always created for a purpose. We knew about Maia Roberts, about how she'd leapt in front of Nathaniel before he was about to be slaughtered. We'd heard the whispers about the Heavenly Fire that ran through Hazel's veins.

No one had expected her demonic counterpart to live.

They were so...hopeful. I wanted to be cynical about it, wanted to make some kind of snotty joke the way Jamie probably would have, but I couldn't. It wasn't in my nature. The only thing I could do was commend them for their bravery and willingness to save their daughter. Maybe one day, when I had a kid, I would understand the value in buying them time. But that's all they had gotten her.

Time.

And now it was up.

As a guardian angel, I knew a few things. The first, was that death didn't hurt. Dying did. Maia had been dying for months before she finally let go. If there was anything to respect her for, it was that. Secondly, getting into heaven wasn't as easy as people thought. I already knew I wasn't going to make it the first time I died. That's what happens when you grew up on the streets and had to fend for yourself. I was nine years old the first time I killed somebody.

It had all gone downhill from there. I never wanted to make up excuses for the way I used to be, but it was all I had to ride on.

The third thing I knew, was that everyone deserved a second chance. That's why I was here, now, coughing and sputtering and shoving my way through debris, literally walking through fire as I made my way to Hazel. If you do fuck up, and you do die before you get to make up for it, there's another way. You become a Guardian. They give you a list of people who are doomed to a horrible and tragic fate (which is more than you'd think) and assign one for you to protect.

Now here's the thing: Everybody dies at some point. It will happen to all of us. Even the "immortal" ones find it too unbearable at a certain checkpoint and either kill themselves or hire someone else do it. My job was just to prolong it as much as inhumanly possible.

This was no easy task with Hazel Roberts.

Smoke clouded my vision and lungs, trying to wrap itself around my windpipe and crush every ounce of oxygen I had. I closed my eyes again, focusing on my need to breathe for a few minutes before finally it was like inhaling with an SCBA on. I opened my eyes. Everything was clear. Grinning to myself, I kept going.

The power of negation was always handy. Being able to counteract any and all forces or powers was exactly why I was the only one who could guard Hazel. I could've gotten stuck with something dumb like Cora, who had only been blessed with perfect aim. Yes, perfect aim was actually a blessing. Could you imagine? No wonder she was always so pissed off. Although I was different than the rest of my Circle, they were still gifted people. Unlike Troy and the rest of the experimental freaks from Creto's Institute, we had been born with our gifts, it was all natural. Theirs were created in a test tube.

I could see through the fire like my eyes were made of heat sensory lenses, Hazel's screams still echoing through the Institute. The wood was groaning uneasily, making me nervous. I could tell we didn't have a lot of time.

"Hazel!" I called, jogging up a flight of disheveled stairs. I rounded a corner, grimacing at the sight in front of me. This entire wing of the Institute had fallen apart, the whole hallway slanting like it was a slide and I was at the bottom. I muttered something rude to the Higher Angels, hoping they could hear me and reminding them that if this didn't get me into Heaven, nothing else could. I gripped the molding on the wall, small angels and demons supporting my weight as I scaled the side of the hallway, dodging the occasional chunk of debris that snapped off and fell towards me.

Hazel's room was an inferno, her voice louder than ever as the fire raged wildly around her. Even I, who was built to withstand this, began to sweat. She rolled over onto her side, the wood creaking underneath her. There were tears rolling out of her eyes and evaporating within seconds.

"Don't move," I ordered, crawling towards her. "Whatever you do, don't move."

I inched my way across the burning bedroom door, stretching my fingertips out for her. Hazel shifted, reaching as far as she could. It wasn't good enough.

"Don't move," I demanded again, watching as she tried to move towards me with a whimper. The wood creaked under her again, sagging slightly. "HAZEL DO-"

She shifted, the floor snapping underneath her weight. "NO!"

The entire floor caved in, the both of us falling through levels like bowling balls. Wood and glass and furniture and weapons hung around us in the dead space, the wind rushing past our faces as we went. I stretched my hand out, counting the floors silently as we went.

One...Two...

Hazel was unconscious at this point, her black hair whipping wildly around her face as she hung like a ragdoll. I could see the fire swirling around her, burning anything that came close enough to harm her like some sort of untamable armor. I kept reaching, my fingers almost close enough to brush her skin when we crashed through the roof of the library.

Hazel's eyes snapped open, the iris' gleaming a brilliant orange as the fire exploded out of her skin, burning any and everything around her. Each piece of furniture in the room was blown backwards, half of the banister melting in its place as she landed gently on her feet, unscathed. I shoved a board of wood off of my arm, grimacing at the brightness of her skin as she examined her own hands. It was as if someone else had stepped into her body for the first time, and she was just now realizing it was there. Her skin glowed like she was made of the sun itself, hissing and crackling like lava. She started to laugh. She started to cackle, actually, which wasn't very pleasing to the ears.

Hazel started moving slowly as if she were just learning to walk, her eyes set on one thing: the Clockwork Angel that hung around the Statue of Rogziel's neck. I clenched my jaw, knowing full well that I wasn't looking at Hazel anymore. Summoning what little strength I had left, I pushed myself to my feet, falling into a dead sprint as she stretched her hand out towards the tiny metal angel. I had seconds.

One...she grinned to herself.

Two...the Clockwork Angel began humming and glowing like the rest of her skin.

Three...I tackled her.

We crashed to the ground, Hazel screeching and writhing in my arms as everyone watched outside through the Library window. She reared in my grip, my hands locking around her shoulders. I snapped my eyes open, feeling the ice trickle through every vein in my body. It shot through me like a snowstorm, the veins under my skin glowing a bright, inhuman blue as Hazel froze in place. It was like a white-blue ink that leaked from my body to hers, traveling through and illuminating every muscle fiber in her skin until it reached her eyes. The usual black iris' turned an electric blue, a new wave of pressure exploding through our bodies and shattering the large library window.

Books fell off of their shelves, the ground rattled gently, glass cases fell over. The Statue of Rogziel lit up like the Statue of Liberty with our bright blue light, noise and humming and brightness consuming me for what felt like days before finally everything dulled back to the way it was, Hazel slumping in my arms. I blinked in surprise, trying to catch my breath as I looked around us at the Brooklyn Circle's destroyed home.

Jamie was the first to speak as the Shadowhunters and teachers alike slowly and gingerly began picking their way through the rubble, moving towards us with caution.

"What the Hell did you to her?"

"No," Darren interjected, looking around at his destroyed home. "What the Hell has she done to us?"


	16. Branded

***Hazel POV***

* * *

I shivered. There were goosebumps rising all over every inch of my body and I clenched my jaw, trying to keep from shaking under the heavy blankets that did nothing to help. My eyes opened widely, no fluttering or gentle waking like in the movies. This was hard. My head was pounding, every muscle inside of me screaming for rest. For a moment I almost hoped it was nothing but a hangover, but after trying to move I was well aware that this pain was much, much worse.

Cas knit his eyebrows together and looked down at me, trying to shift underneath my weight to make me more comfortable. It wasn't working. I glanced stiffly around the room, at the heavy blankets that masked our tangled legs, at his long, thin arm wrapped around me like a jacket. The walls were all white, every piece of furniture, every accent, every piece of cloth aside from the royal blue blankets that enveloped us. This room was too bright for my liking. I hated all of this. I swallowed thickly, trying to sit up.

"I wouldn't," he said gently, shaking his head slightly. "You tried that a couple hours ago and nearly passed out."

"Where the Hell am I?"

"House of Seven."

"Seven what?"

"You should go back to sleep."

I was formulating some kind of argument in the back of my mind but my head fell back into space between his collarbone and his neck and my body began to grow heavy again.

"I fucked up," I mumbled sleepily, trying not to pass out. "God I fucked up so bad."

"Go to sleep," he urged again, the ice trickling down my spine the way it always had when he touched me. "We can talk about this later."

"I don't have time for later," I argued, shaking off the haze. I sat up, pushing my hair out of my face and sucking in a deep breath as I tried to compose myself. "I have to make sure everyone's okay and I have to figure out what happened."

"Everyone's fine," Cas lied, rubbing my back and sitting up with me. "The only one we're worried about right now is you."

"The only one _you're _worried about right now is me," I countered. "Which is stupid considering I just destroyed an entire Institute."

"Half." he corrected, not helping. I shot him a look, forcing myself out of the sheets.

My bare feet hummed lightly on the cold wood floor, the world spinning for a moment as I clung to one of the bedposts for stability. Cas grumbled something in irritation behind me before rounding his side of the bed and steadying me.

"Seriously," he said more sternly, his blue eyes locked on me. "You need to sleep. Whatever the Hell possessed you the other night nearly took you out-"

"The other night? How long have I been asleep?"

Cas hesitated.

"How long have I been asleep?" I pressed again, the irritation rising in my tone. Cas bit his lip for a second.

"Four days."

"Four days?!" I exclaimed, feeling lightheaded. "Four fucking days?!"

"Hazel you really need to calm-"

"I've had plenty of time to calm down! I've had four fucking days to calm down!" I cried dramatically, pushing past him.

I stumbled almost drunkenly to the door, throwing it open just in time to catch Cora awkwardly bent over, her ear pressed against the wall. Her eyes went wide and she blushed, grinning nervously.

"I was just...uhm..."

"Eavesdropping." Cas said flatly, crossing his arms and grinning at her. Cora made a face but nodded in admittance as I swayed uneasily.

"Easy, tiger," she soothed, letting me lean on her small frame for support. "You probably shouldn't be out of bed right now."

"Out of bed?" I mocked sleepily. "I shouldn't be _here _right now, I need to go back home, I need to-"

"Home?" Cora asked tightly. "Since when did you start considering the Brooklyn Institute your home?"

"Since I got my memory back." I snapped quickly, Cora clenching her jaw. I felt like I was going to puke, hopefully on her.

"How's it feel?" Gint asked, strolling down the white marble hallway towards us. "Being caught in between two worlds?"

"Like I'm gonna throw up." I said honestly.

Two seconds later I was heaving on the hallway floor.

"Jesus Christ," Gemma hissed, waltzing around me as Cora held a trashcan under my face. "We _just _polished the marble."

"Take it easy," Cas warned. "She's sick."

"And bat-shit crazy, as far as I heard." Gemma grinned. I shot her a glare and she shrunk slightly, tossing her shimmering blonde hair over one shoulder as if it were some sort of armour.

"Can we take her to the wizard now?" Cora asked quietly. "He hasn't shut up about her all morning."

"The warlock? You mean Magnus?" I perked. "He's here?"

"Originally they called him in to chill you out, literally," Gemma said examining her nails. "But we had Cas for that. Now he just wants to make sure you don't explode again."

"Gemma!"

"What? She already ruined _one _mystical home, we wouldn't want her to screw up _twice._"

"You need to go," I hissed. "Before I ruin _you._" I could feel my skin heating up again by the second, but Cas put a hand on my shoulder and the warmth was washed away by a sea of ice.

"Come on," he said quietly, lifting me gently to my feet. "I'll take you to go see him."

"You're taking her to the wizard, right?" Cora asked innocently. Gint rolled his eyes.

"Warlock, idiot. Warlock."

"Right, right, that guy."

Cas slung one of my arms around his shoulders, the both of us only hobbling down the hall for a good thirty seconds before he finally gave up and simply carried me. I rested my head against the side of his chest, the coldness of his skin soothing like an ice pack to a headache. It was hard not to fall asleep again as I clung to him, swaying slightly with the movement of his stride.

Despite how completely exhausted I was, closing my eyes seemed impossible due to the luminosity of the hallways around us. Light poured in like water through the tall floor-to-ceiling windows, bouncing off the shiny white walls like rubber. Gint walked in front of us, although I hadn't remembered any of us asking him to come.

I turned my head at the sound of creaking doors, Gint leading us into a bright, large sitting room. Everything in here was the same as the rest of their home- white, sparkling, sterile. It made me uneasy. The cleanliness of their place almost seemed to remind you of how dirty _you _were, whether physically or spiritually. The openness of the rooms seemed to stand for the fact that no secrets could be kept there. All your memories, your hidden fears, your infidelities, they were all on full blast, written across your skin and highlighted by the obnoxiously white carpet for all to see. Magnus stood from his seat, bags hanging lightly under his usually bright and sparkling eyes. His hair was unusually disheveled, lacking any and all hair product. There was not a trace of lip gloss on his mouth. I was stunned.

"Magnus-" I croaked, sliding out of Cas' arms and reaching for him childishly.

"Oh, Honey," he breathed, wrapping me in a hug and kissing the top of my forehead. He smelled like peppermint. "I'm so glad you're alright, I got there right after they took you, I didn't know your condition, everyone was a mess-"

"I fucked up so bad," I repeated, tears welling up in my eyes. I wasn't really sure where they had come from. Maybe I was tired, maybe I was upset, and angry, and distraught, but whatever it was it had all come pouring out at once during what felt like the most inconvenient of times. "Magnus, I fucked up so bad."

"It's not your fault," he insisted, stroking my hair. He pulled away, holding my face in his hands. "I know for a fact that Hazel Kyle Roberts wouldn't burn down an entire Institute unless provoked."

"The Clave isn't going to forgive me this time," I sputtered, wiping my cheeks with the back of my arm. "We're already in trouble Magnus, they're not gonna forgive me."

"Shh," he whispered, hugging me tightly again. "We're gonna figure something out alright? We'll worry about that soon, but now," he said sternly, leading me to the couch and sitting with my hands enveloped in his. "We need to make sure _you're_ okay."

"I don't know what happened," I sniffled, shaking my aching head. "It's all...it came out of a dream and-"

"I need you to tell me everything that happened, do you understand? Every little detail is important."

I did. I told him everything about the dream, about the woman and her slinky, black, tar-like skin. I told him about the way she spoke and the way she moved, the way her eyes flickered like live fire. I told him about how she said she owned me, about how she swore I'd soon go mad with power and be eaten alive by my own gift. I told him about the Blood Moon, Magnus stiffening at the mention of it.

"What exactly did she say about it?" He asked harshly, his eyes widening. I shook my head.

"Nothing specific," I answered quickly. "Just that she wouldn't need to hide after it. That she'd be able to take my soul or something-"

"Has she ever said anything about your parents?"

"What?"

"Has she ever said anything about your parents?" he repeated. I shook my head, Magnus releasing a breath that I hadn't even realized he was holding.

"What happened after that?"

"I have no idea how she did it," I said quietly, fear washing over me suddenly. I could feel the goosebumps come back to my skin as Cas passed behind the couch, brushing his fingers across the back of my neck to calm me. "Her hand it just...she touched me and it exploded and-"

"Where?"

I tugged down the front of a T-shirt I hadn't realized wasn't mine until now. I shot Cas a look, and he grimaced apologetically, beginning to sputter an explanation about how half my clothes had been burned off anyways before Cora finally rolled her eyes and shut him up. My heart quickened at the skin underneath my left collarbone.

It was red, irritated as if a rash had spread underneath the black marking that branded the skin over my heart. It was an intricate, thick marking that stung to touch and glimmered against my skin as if the ink were still wet. Magnus studied it closely, laughing to himself slightly. It started slowly, growing until Magnus was almost roaring with laughter, shaking his head and wiping tears from his eyes as if he'd just witnessed the birth of a child.

"I don't get it." Gint said flatly, watching Magnus with a mixture of disgust and caution.

"By the Angels," Magnus whispered, looking up at me. "Your mother was truly extraordinary," he stated with a smile, catching me off guard. I hadn't talked about Mom in...well, what had felt like forever. "And Nathaniel is truly, truly, truly a creature of his word."

"I don't get it." Gint repeated. I shrugged when he gave me a questioning look.

"I don't think any of us do." I said quietly, glancing at Magnus who was still shaking his head.

"Care to let us in on the joke?" Gint demanded rather rudely. "I hate it when other people are having more fun than I am."

"It's not a joke," Magnus smiled. "It's not a joke at all, it's just...in this world, even in a mess like this, there are some truly beautiful people."

"Magnus I don't understand."

"The woman you saw, the Love of Nathaniel...her name was Amara. Jamie and the others would know her if they saw her. If you'd had the chance to describe her to them they'd know. They've seen her before. You have too, you just don't realize it."

"I'm lost on how this has anything to do with Mom..."

"Amara was reborn after your blood, blood laced with Heavenly Fire, was leaked into the lake. Lucy Lamm was a traitor among the Brooklyn Institute and attacked you at your arrival in Lake Lyn after you burned down Creto's Institute."

"This seems like an awful lot of shitty news for someone who was just laughing." I fired, knitting my eyebrows at him. How in God's name could he be laughing? And had he just said Lucy was a traitor? My Lucy? Darren's Lucy? Heaven's Lucy? Was that why Heaven had been moping around for the past few months and trying to force herself to like guys? How could I have missed something so huge?

"Just listen," he insisted. "Amara was reborn out of your blood, it's why she needs you. She's attached to you, living as you live, thriving as you thrive."

"That's exactly how Anastasia described the Heavenly Fire," I said quietly. "Like a living organism."

"Exactly. It's completely absorbed her, Hazel. She's literally gone mad, and she needs you in order to survive. Amara won't be able to separate her lifeline from yours until the Blood Moon."

"What's the Blood Moon?"

"Blood Moon is to you what a full moon is to werewolves," Cas said quietly. "You'll be at your absolute strongest."

"Why would she come after me when I'm at my strongest?"

"Strength means power," Magnus answered. "And in case you haven't noticed, you're not exactly..._you _when you're being powerful. Heavenly Fire has a way of masking the mind and living off feeling."

"In other words I won't be able to control myself." I grimaced.

"I hope so, but it may not matter. The other night Amara hoped to turn your own gift against you like it did her, she was hoping that since you couldn't physically remember how to control your body, your body would've forgotten it's immunity."

"Seems like it did," I grumbled, remembering the pain of the fire. "Hurt well enough."

"I know, but that's why I was so incredibly overjoyed," Magnus smiled again. "The second she touched you, it was like rubbing two magnets together. Two different phases of Heavenly Fire joined together."

"What's so great about that?"

"You were branded."

I waited for Magnus' words to make some sort of sense but I couldn't put it together in my own mind and was forced to ask him to clarify.

"The Fire has marked you as one of it's own. This rune? It literally means 'Fire Proof'," Magnus began chuckling again. "Nathaniel's given you his blessing to wield the Fire as your own. Never again will your own fire hurt you. You have the ability to control this gift. You just have to figure out how."

"Why would he bless me?" I asked quietly. "I haven't done anything except hurt a lot of people and burn a lot of shit down."

"He has some sort of faith in you," Magnus shrugged. "When you believe in someone you don't look at what they've done, you look at what they're capable of."

"I don't know what to say."

"This isn't just a sign for you to stay faithful," Magnus said quietly. "Hazel, this is a sign for anyone else who ever tries to harm you. Nathaniel's giving a warning to_ them. _He's claiming you as his own."

"If she can't touch me, how does she plan to kill me."

"It's easiest to separate someone from their counterpart when the counterpart is feeling...independent. If Amara can cause enough damage to your physical form , the Heavenly Fire will find no more use for your body and desert it." Cas explained.

"How loyal." I grumbled.

"I need Jamie." I insisted, wiping the sweat off my forehead with the back of my hand. This was too much to take in. If Amara was coming after us, and I still hadn't apologized for what I'd down to their home, I needed to move quickly. Cas made a face.

"I wouldn't be so sure of that, Love," Gint grimaced. "Jamie's probably the last bloke you wanna see right about now."

"Why?" I asked, the panic rising inside me. "He's pissed isn't he?"

"Can we have a moment, please?" Magnus asked, politely as he could manage. Cas looked to me for approval before disappearing behind the large door with Gint and Cora in tow.

"What the Hell are you doing with Fallen angels?" Magnus demanded sharply the second the door was closed, catching me off guard once more. I knit my eyebrows together, shaking my head in confusion.

"What the Hell are you talking about?"

"The House of Seven? Seriously? Jamie may not be pissed off about you burning down his house but he _will _be pissed about you hanging out with his mortal enemies."

"None of these people are fairies, it says in the Book that-"

"Faeries are the _descendants_ of fallen angels, these ARE the Fallen angels. How the Hell did you come across these kids?"

"I didn't come across anybody, they found me!"

"Of course they did."

"Magnus they're really not that bad. They're a little rough around the edges but they're not serial killers or-"

"_YES!"_ Magnus cried, gripping my arm a little too roughly. "Yes they are! How the Hell do you think angels get cast out of heaven? They perform unforgivable deeds, they-"

"Doesn't God forgive everybody?"

"Yes, but angels aren't like us, Hazel, they're held to higher standards. You can't sin in Heaven."

"So what'd they do?"

"Specifically? I have no idea, you'll have to ask them about their stories if you want to find them out. That, or find one of their leftover feathers. Their wings burn off as they fall but they always keep a few feathers."

"Why?"

"Hope? Memory? Who the Hell knows. The only thing we've got for sure is that you shouldn't be hanging out with them."

"They're taking care of me."

"They have motives."

"Everybody has motives," I snapped back. "The Institute wanted me to secure their research and see what they could learn from me, Creto wants me because of my gift-"

"Hazel don't for a second think that there aren't people out here who love you because there are. Start with your mother, for example."

"My Mom is the reason-"

"That your alive?" Magnus fired, raising an eyebrow. I sunk in my seat. "You have to stop looking for the worst in people, Love."

"I don't try to," I grumbled. "It happens."

"I know you've been through a lot," Magnus said, his voice more gentle now. "Even before Jamie found you, you never had it easy. However...we don't always get to choose our fate. You were meant to do this, high school, running away, nothing is going to change what you're meant to do and where you're meant to be."

"Jamie..." I murmured, inspecting my hands as if they were going to tell me what to do next. "I have to talk to him."

"Soon, but maybe not now."

"Magnus he has to know I didn't do it on purpose."

"He knows you didn't, Honey, they all know you didn't do it on purpose but sometimes..."

"It's not good enough." I finished, clenching my jaw and shaking my head. I looked away, praying to God I wouldn't start crying again.

"Jamie's had to make some really tough decisions lately..." Magnus said quietly. "With his parents gone.. I mean you know what kind of position he's in."

"Right, right," mumbled, disagreeing in the back of my mind. I hate Magnus' honesty for once in my life. "I get it." I didn't. "He has to do what's best for his people."

"Yes," Magnus nodded. "He does. And right now his people are scared. I think it's best if...you know some space would be-"

"I need to stay the Hell away from them until I get it together." I said flatly, shrugging. Magnus frowned, sitting next to me again and holding my hands in his.

"It'll be fine," he reassured me. "It'll all be fine."

I didn't believe him, but I nodded anyways.


	17. Cutting Your Losses

***Jamie POV***

* * *

"Has anyone told you yet?"

"What, that I'm beautiful? I get told on a daily basis, but feel free to remind me." I countered stiffly, Heaven crossing her arms and giving me the infamous 'Mom Look.' I sighed, picking through a bit of the rubble in our quarantined section of the Institute before rolling my eyes.

"What is it that people have yet to tell me?" I asked, the irritation clear in my tone. I hadn't meant to be short with her, but my sarcasm and wit was running surprisingly low.

"The Institute is naming you Head Hunter," she said cheerfully, her voice full of hope. It didn't cheer me up the way she'd hoped it would. "Darren's pretty pissed off, but it's good news right?"

"Good news is only good news if you don't expect it," I muttered shortly, glancing up at the greying sky. "Come on, Heav. We all knew I'd be named Head Hunter."

"Considering they only elect a new one every 9 years assuming that the current hasn't died in battle yet, I'd say it's pretty good news."

"Are you trying to subtly remind me that if I die before they have a chance to hang my portrait in the Valkyrie Hall they'll replace me?"

"I'm trying to remind you that it's not all gloom and doom today. Cheer up."

"How am I supposed to cheer up?" I asked warningly, glancing over my shoulder at her. "We can rebuild all the rooms we want, but we know the real issue here."

"That doesn't mean it's the only thing we can focus on."

"Which is why you're definitely _not _the Chosen One," I grumbled a little too harshly. "You can't run away from your problems and expect them to solve themselves."

"What if _you're_ not the Chosen One?" Darren asked, strolling towards us through the debris. The area under his left eye was still purple from where I'd hit him the other day in the Training Room while sparring. I felt bad for the quickest of a moment, but it was soon replaced with satisfaction. It was a reminder that I'd still yet to be beat.

"Still clinging to the idle, false hope that it's you?" I countered.

"No one said it had to be me," Darren mumbled, kicking away a plank of burnt wood. "I'm just saying there's a chance it isn't you. It's just myth. It could be anybody."

"It could be," I agreed numbly. "But it's not."

"You should keep an open mind."

"You should shut the Hell up."

"You can snap on me all you want Jamie but it's not gonna change the fact that Hazel isn't one of us anymore."

"You're just going to brush her off?" I challenged, whirling on him. "You're just going to cast her out over one mistake?"

"One mistake? Look at our _home_ Jamie! This isn't a mistake this is a fucking disaster-"

"Have you given up on Lucy?" I asked with sudden calm. Darren was smart enough that it was a dangerous tone. His face fell, a mixture of anger and defeat washing over his expression.

"Of course not-"

"And if you had to kill her would you do it?"

"Jamie..." Heaven interjected quietly, clearly appalled. Darren narrowed his eyes at me.

"No."

"No? You mean to tell me that if she were to come back and threaten everything we've worked for, everything we've built and created and have, you wouldn't stop her?"

"Jamie I-"

"Whose side are you really on?" I hissed, closing the space between us.

"She's my _sister-_"

"And you love her right?" Darren nodded.

"The difference is that my sister isn't burning down schools in her sleep." he growled.

"No," I whispered, clenching my jaw. "The difference is that if I have to kill Hazel, I may be able to do it. Hell, if I had to make a snap decision with no thought involved and the pros outweighed the cons, I'm almost _positive_ I could."

"Jamie!" Heaven hissed again. I ignored her.

"The difference, Darren," I stated dramatically. "Is that if and when I have to choose between my people and a chosen person, I will choose my _people. _And _that _is why I'm the Chosen One. _That _is why I'm sure it's no one else."

"You know part of me prays she does fuck up," Darren growled. "Just so you have a chance to kill her. And when you have the chance to kill her, I hope you take it. When you take it, I hope it eats you alive."

I turned back to the streets of Brooklyn, marveling silently at the way we could see the busy city but the busy city couldn't see us.

"I'm sure it will," I said softly to myself, refusing to turn around as the both of them marched angrily back into what was left of our school. I didn't expect them to understand. "I'm sure it will."

There were several things I knew and I was processing them twenty different ways in a matter of seconds. Here were the facts:

Hazel was undoubtedly becoming a problem. It wasn't her fault. I couldn't say that nobody blamed her because I knew for a fact that more than a few in the Institute did, but I was working on getting people to understand that we were dealing with somebody far out of our league. The line, "How would you like it if a demonic spawn was living inside your soul" had only seemed to make things worse, so I'd told Aaron to stop trying to help. It wasn't that I didn't love her. God, I loved her, and I was almost positive that she would be the _only _person that I'd ever love simply for the way she always seemed to keep up with me. Even though none of the past few events had been good, they'd been spectacular. Hazel was out of the ordinary, and so was I. Like attracts like. I needed someone astounding, and she was.

The next was that I would always choose my people. As stated earlier, I loved Hazel. She took me from walking around like a robot to feeling more things in one sitting than a thirteen year old girl with PMS. She made me feel like I was living. But I knew full-well that my purpose in this world was not to live and feel. It was to protect. My father had somehow managed to wrangle up my Mother _and _the duty of protecting the people, but it had nearly caused the apocalypse and second coming of Jesus Christ, so I wasn't quite sure I was ready to attempt such a feat. I was torn, but the more of an issue Hazel became, the easier it was to let her go and focus on what needed to be done instead of what I _wanted _to be done.

It was barely eight-thirty in the morning and I was already becoming disgusted with myself. How could a person feel, or lack thereof, so disconnected? Why would any lusty, passionate teenager choose anything else over love? I was supposed to be swooning and moving the moon and stars for someone who may or may not even feel the same. That was my main argument. My main reason. Hazel had no idea who I was to her. The night in the forest had been beautiful, but the girl that Casper had dragged out of the burning house and the girl I had dragged into the hopeful treeline was not the same girl that had climbed her way to the top of the Ferris Wheel and risked her life to save a group of people who were considering her extinction.

Hazel used to be selfless. She was still brave, and passionate, and strong, but it was a different kind of strength that enveloped her now. It was self-preserving strength. It was an independent, self-centered, self-revolving strength. Everything she did or said and every way she moved was based on how she _felt _and her characterization had drawn so far from mine that we were nearly complete opposites. We used to work well together because we could plan and calculate and strategize and win and now she was all emotions and impulse and rage and fire and destruction.

I had faith that she could overcome it. I believed that we could help her defeat Amara and whatever else came her way because when Cas pulled her out of the ashes with melted ice shimmering against her skin I saw her Brand just as everyone else had. If Nathaniel believed that she was strong enough to control and truly possess Heavenly Fire then so did I. The issue was time. Between the Blood Moon and Creto and the Clave and Amara there was no way in Hell we were ever going to solve this in one piece. I would've rather had Hazel be far away and struggle in safety than have her struggle in close proximity and put the rest of my team in danger. I was trying to save everybody.

I should've known it wouldn't work.


	18. Coping

***Heaven POV***

* * *

I slid out of Troy's thick cotton sheets, my hair draping over my shoulders in thin waves as I sat up. Years of Shadowhunter training had taught me how to be silent, but it had also taught us how to be on high alert at all times and I prayed to the Angels he wouldn't wake up. My clothes were scattered about his floor in heaps of shame and regret and I picked up each article of clothing slowly, feeling worse each time I bent over.

Troy snored softly behind me. Why couldn't I want him? He wasn't as good looking as Darren or Jamie, but he was reasonably cute. He wasn't astoundingly intelligent like Anastasia but he was really good at math and that was nice. His strength wasn't comparable to Aaron's because Aaron was a giant, but he was a decent fighter. There was nothing _wrong _with him per se, it was just that there was also nothing _right. _I didn't even like boys.

I sighed, pulling my shirt over my head and twisting my hair into a long braid. There was no point in lying to myself. I'd tried sleeping with a girl too as a distraction, and that hadn't felt right either. This had nothing to do with Troy being a boy. It had to do with him _not _being Lucy.

I missed her. It was hard enough watching Jamie have to shed everything that made him a human being and leave Hazel in the past. Ever since we were kids and I had watched him be dragged into the Training Room by Jace for extra hours while the rest of us played outside, I wanted the best for him. It was all I could dream of, for all of us to turn out okay and healthy and in love and safe. It was a childish thing to think, but I figured it was all I had left. We'd been faced with the fact that the Institute, this little place of ours that we thought was so safe-was temporary. It wouldn't last forever, and neither would we. The only reason I found to continue fighting was the hope that someday, somehow, kids like us wouldn't have to sacrifice so much to keep ourselves safe.

The door creaked slightly when I opened it and I winced, glancing over my shoulder to make sure Troy hadn't woken. Nothing. Still snoring on the edge of the bed, the boy rolled over, his hair sticking up wildly as he moved. I watched him for a few more moments, biting the inside of my cheek. Some time went by. I'm not sure how much.

I closed the door and stepped into the bustling hallway, slipping into the crowd unseen and shedding the shame that was now rippling under my skin like a parasite. For a moment, I was okay again.

* * *

***Lucy POV***

* * *

Pluemon wailed dramatically as we trudged through the barren Higher Forests. It was sweltering outside, at least a hundred degrees, and we'd been walking for days.

The demons had come out of the night like shadows. No one had expected them of all people to attack, which was probably why it had worked out so well for them. You'd think that being demonically allegiant would spare you the trouble of having to deal with their petty bullshit, but apparently not. Everything had been going smoothly. Creto had collected over half of the Fallen angels that were straggling about the Earth hopelessly, directionless, still emotionally banged up with little to no memory of their time in heaven. That's the price you pay for siding with the good guys: they always expect perfection out of you. They were obedient, luckily, being desperate enough for a home to follow almost any order. It had come to our attention that once you possessed their last few feathers it wasn't hard to control their every move. Either by blackmail or enchantments, taking a Fallen angels feathers was like taking out their soul.

Like I said, it was all going swell until the demons attacked. We'd assumed they were on our side but it was only a matter of time before Amara made a trip to the Underworld and into the lap of Azazel. Playing in the bed sheets of Hades' right hand man apparently had it's perks; it didn't take long for her to convince him to join her cause and set a pack of cronies on us.

"I told you to come to an agreement," I sighed in irritation, my tone retaining a detached and rather bored air. "But you never listen to me."

"Because we can't trust you!" Pluemon spit.

"Because she is a child," Creto corrected. "And children are meant to be-"

"Seen, not heard," I yawned. "I've heard that one."

"Then you'll do well to listen."

"I don't think you're in any position to threaten me. You know, considering we've been walking through the woods for nearly a week and you have no weapons."

"No, but I _do _have the exact location of your little girlfriend," he said slyly, wrinkling his nose at the humid air. "And I'm sure the Hounds would be more than happy to send her a visit."

I closed my mouth for a moment. It wasn't really possible for me to feel anything in my current state, but there was an edge to Creto's tone that physically bothered me and made me feel very awake. I had the sense that if I _could _feel, it would be panic. Heaven hadn't crossed my mind many times in Creto's hideout, mainly my days were filled with training the Fallen and planning, but it wa all thanks to this black liquid shit that Pluemon had summoned up in the basement somehow. He was a weird one, that guy.

"All I'm saying is that if you hadn't rejected her, we wouldn't be hiking right now."

"Tell me something," Creto drawled, as if the heat and the air and the sweating didn't bother him. Did he even sweat? I tried to peek at his forehead but he caught me staring and gave me a funny look. "Would you agree to give someone something they wanted simply because they were bigger than you?"

"No." I answered quickly.

"Exactly. There is a method to everything I do, be sure of it."

"And what is this method?"

"I want to get close to the girl again."

"Of course you do."

"This isn't a laughing matter, brat. When the Blood Moon comes full circle the Fire will be in it's most raw form. Harvesting it from her body will be easier than it will ever be for many more lifetimes."

"You can't just suck the gift out of her and hope it protects you like it protects her. You can't steal someone's power."

"But you _can._"

I thought about this for a moment.

"One of the Fallen has a gift, don't they?"

"In the team of Seven that was arranged at the old Institute," Creto mused. "I had them placed together on purpose. They were my All-Stars, if you will."

"What can they do?"

"What _can't _they do?" Pluemon gibbered, laughing quietly to himself seconds later. I almost felt bad for him. Creto had taken his daughter approximately one week after Hazel became part of the Shadowworld. Knowing full well that Pluemon would do anything for his little girl, Creto used her as leverage to gain insight on the Clave. Creto killed the kid anyways, but after one look at Hazel, who looked astonishingly similar, it didn't matter. Take a man's child and you will shake him to his core. He was broken, and the broken make the best followers.

"So one of them has the power to...I mean to take other people's powers I guess?"

"One of them has the power to negate the abilities of others," Creto mused, sitting down on a large white stone after dusting it off. He sat poised, crossing his legs with a straight back and royal, snooty resting expression. "Which will be good enough to contain Amara and keep her influence at bay until the Blood Moon."

"And then what?"

"Naturally the boy becomes the rival to whatever ability he is closest to. You have a child who produces light? Casper will produce darkness. You have a child that produces fire? Casper will produce ice. It is his body's natural way."

"So when Hazel becomes a crazy fireball chick?"

"Casper will become the only thing powerful enough to kill her."

"What makes you so sure he'll do it."

"We have ways of influence," he murmured confidently, picking a piece of lint off his robes. "It's nothing you should fret about."

"Yes it is," I scoffed. "Say Casper becomes the new powerful being. How will that help _you?_ Everybody knows that the only one strong enough to wield Heavenly Fire is someone who's either been Branded or born through Nathaniel's bloodline."

"Good Lord, you ask too many questions." he drawled in annoyance.

"What happens to me after this? Are you going to keep me around as some emotionless robot?"

"Don't be stupid, Lucy. Even _you _know this life without feeling is a life without pain."

"And joy." I added quickly. Creto rolled his eyes.

"You must learn to create your own joy...etcetera, etcetera."

"This isn't a Hallmark card."

"A who?"

"Whatever," I grumbled, tossing my backpack to the ground and making a pillow of it. I layed down on my back, the sun washing over my face as I closed my eyes. "It's not going to work. You can't steal somebodies gift."

"No," he agreed quietly, looking out at the mountains. "But you _can _steal their blood."


	19. Hands

**AUTHORS NOTE- From now on I'll be writing in third person UNLESS it's Jamie or Hazel's perspective. I've been re-inspired and I want to change a few things about the writing style, so I'm sorry for any inconvenience! I haven't really gotten any reviews so it was sort of discouraging, I'm trying to keep my head up and continue with their story!**

* * *

**AARON **tapped his pencil anxiously against his thick spiral notebook, his knee bouncing in sync. It had been a week and a half and they were still working on re-building the Institute that Hazel had burnt down, even with Enchantments it seemed like it would take forever. The thought of spells and potions and blessings pulled Aaron's wide eyes towards the ragged, thick black book that sat under a mass of haphazardly piled papers on the corner of his desk. His studying in the arts had only started about a year ago when Ms. Etta had been healing them all from their wounds from the Fair incident and he had offered to help. That's why Aaron was drawn to it, the ability it had to heal and protect others in ways he knew he couldn't.

It wasn't that he felt like a horrible failure as a Shadowhunter. Aaron was big, and strong, and was good with his axe in the middle of a good fight. He knew how to focus and be useful. Even when he was part of the best team at the Institute with Jamie, the new Head Hunter as his leader, Aaron was always faced with the fact that he wasn't the best. It was the hardest and greatest thing about working with Jamie.

You never had to deal with the ungodly hard decisions or pull the weight of the entire team, but you had to deal with the fact that it was because you would never be capable enough to.

Other than that he was pretty confident in his place as a soldier. It wasn't the fighting that bothered him, granted he was grateful that demons turned to ash most of the time instead of bleeding because the sticky liquid made him sort of queasy. Aaron's confidence issues came from a deeper place. It came from his own personality. He wished he could be like Darren, just act like a complete competitive mess, but Aaron had never doubted himself as a fighter: he doubted himself as a person.

Aaron's eyes flickered to the head of short, shimmering blonde hair one seat up and to the left of him.

Johanna Evans.

She was one of the few girls he knew that still looked beautiful with no makeup and sweatpants and short hair, although he barely ever paid attention to what she was wearing unless she truly wanted him to. Her back was to him, but Aaron started thinking of the way her light green eyes sparkled mischievously even when she wasn't up to something. Her little nose was so small that several times he'd been tempted to kiss it lightly the way they did in movies but he'd stopped himself against his better judgement. Every time he was feeling brave, her beautiful eyes quickly reminded him that she was so far out of his league he could barely see her.

Johanna's hand was suddenly in the air and her honey-milk voice was floating through the room and Aaron had been so busy paying attention to her and so _not _busy paying attention to keeping his balance. Suddenly there were books and paper scattered across the floor and he was sitting half-assed on the ground still stuck in the desk chair that had now turned over.

A roar of laughter erupted through the room and Aaron could feel his round cheeks burning like they never had before. The bell rang. Johanna's were the first pair of hands helping him gather his cluttered mess. This is why he loved her. Even in the midst of her being popular amongst the other Shadowhunters and him being absolutely not, her hands were filled with his papers that mattered to him and that meant somehow some way maybe they mattered to her too. It was only a lost hope, but Aaron clung to it anyways, the idea for a new poem springing forth in his mind. So far it only had one word.

_Hands._

"Jeez dude," Taz laughed, scooping up the heavy black book and grimacing at its poor state. "Way to keep your cool."

"Leave him alone," Johanna smiled lightly. He was teasing, but she scolded him anyways and it made Aaron want to sing even though several people had told him he couldn't carry a tune to save his life. "Aaron's ratty books are my favorite thing about him." She handed Aaron the rest of his papers and exited the room without even a glance over the shoulder, leaving the large boy in a stupefied state.

"Dude," Taz snapped in his face several times, waving his hands. "Come on, you're drooling."

"Sorry." Aaron mumbled, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand before shoving the papers into his backpack. The whole bag was a mess of books that he had yet to finish, books that he was scared to finished, and books he _had _finished but wanted to read again anyways.

"Seriously," Taz continued as they exited the classroom, pouring into the hallway. "You passed up your only chance at public school for this chick and came back to the Institute in the middle of the semester. The least you can do is grow the balls to ask her out."

Coming from anyone else, this would've seemed harsh, but Aaron knew Taz had the best intentions. It was one of the reasons they'd become quick friends- Taz _always _had the best intentions. When Hazel had asked him to go to Pinewood East with her so she wouldn't be completely alone, Aaron had accidentally asked him to go to the Institute so _he _wouldn't have to be alone, and instead of choosing his sister over a kid he barely knew, Taz had decided to pick random days and just attend both schools.

"I'll ask her out when you ask out Anastasia." Aaron grinned, shoving a hand in his pocket. Taz tripped over his own sneaker, colliding with a red-haired girl who shot him a dirty glance before seeing his face and nearly melting. Aaron rolled his eyes.

"Anastasia's a completely different ballgame," Taz laughed, scratching the back of his neck. "Even you know that. You grew up with her."

"I did," Aaron agreed. "And I think you're a mad man for trying. Not saying you aren't a totally great guy-"

"Are you hitting on me?" Taz teased.

"No! I'm just saying-"

"Wait, why not?" he asked, completely serious. Aaron shot him a look, trying not to laugh. "Like if you were gay, would you ask me out?"

"In case you haven't noticed, I'm not gay...that's kinda why I can't answer that question."

"Yes you can!" Taz cried. "I'm attractive to gay guys, right?!"

"I'm not gay!"

"But if you were-"

"I'M NOT GAY!" Aaron exclaimed louder, drawing the attention of nearly everyone in the hall. His cheeks went red and Taz threw his hands up in defense, even more embarrassed.

"I know what this looks like, people," Taz tried to explain, only making things worse. "But despite popular belief, we are not in a relationship." Aaron slapped his hand against his own forehead, dragging it down his face. Taz continued painfully. "I am not hitting on this young man, although if I were gay I would."

"Please just shut up." Aaron grumbled, a couple girls giggling as one whispered into Johanna's ear.

"And just to clarify another thing, not being gay but letting someone know that they would be attractive if you _were _gay is a **_perfectly normal thing to do and in all instances is extremely acceptable._**" he finished, adding emphasis to the last words.

Johanna smiled sympathetically at Aaron, who prayed she knew wasn't gay. Good God, even if he was, he'd switch sides for a like her. Chatter ensued in the hallway again, people bustling back to their more-important lives and hopefully forgetting what had just gone down. Taz had a way of embarrassing other people, Aaron had a way of embarrassing himself. They sort of balanced each other out yet still managed to become some sort of mass disaster when in the same room for too long.

Eventually, Aaron and Taz were far away from the bustle of the hallways, loping through the corridors of the dorms.

"I would call you a trainwreck, but I don't think I'm in any state to do so."

"Like attracts like," Taz grinned. "It's why we're buddies!"

"We're buddies because everyone else thinks we're annoying." Aaron laughed.

"Yeah, that too. Seriously though, I think you should talk to Johanna."

"What do you say to a girl like that?" Aaron sighed, turning a corner into the Sitting Room and tossing his bookbag against the bottom of the couch before sinking in to the leather cushions. Taz followed suit, shrugging.

"Whatever comes to mind. She can't like you if she doesn't know you."

"She couldn't like me, especially if she _did _know me."

"Your arrogance is ground-shaking," Taz grinned sarcastically, trying to kick at him from the other side of the couch. "Seriously dude, she's a sweet girl. Even if she does reject you I have a feeling it will be gentle. If anything it'll be too gentle and then you'll fall even deeper in love with her and build her a shrine with voodoo dolls and pictures and locks of her hair-"

"My God," Aaron laughed. "What the Hell is wrong with you?"

"I'm friends with people like you."

"Yeah okay. Like I said, as soon as you ask out Anastasia you can call me out."

"I've literally done everything EXCEPT ask her out. You can't call that nothing."

"Oh yes," Aaron teased. "Anonymous flowers, chocolates, jewelry. All that jazz but nothing to back it up."

"I saved my chick from a house fire," Taz smirked. "What have you done besides write her poems you'll never let her read and drool at her from afar?"

"If she needed saving, I would save her, but she doesn't, and that's why I like her."

"Because she's the man in this duo?"

"She's tough!" Aaron argued. "I like tough girls!"

"Ooooo yeah," Taz moaned mockingly. "Give it to me JoJo, I like to be dominated!"

"Shut up." Aaron grumbled, tossing a book at his friend. It barely missed, ricocheted off of the lamp and sending it crashing to the ground. "Son of a bitch."

The pair of them scrambled to pick up and hide the evidence before anyone came to investigate. The last thing they needed was to be prosecuted for another peice of broken furniture. Taz threw the glass in the fireplace, loading up a couple of old newspaper before starting a few small flames with the lighter. He stared into the pit of it aimlessly as the fire grew larger and warmer, an orange glow washing over his tan skin. It was one of the few times he wasn't smiling, and Aaron noticed it.

"How is everything?" he asked gingerly. Taz didn't shift his gaze, just shrugged lightly.

"I miss her," he admitted. "I don't really get to see her as much as I did when we first moved back. I haven't talked to her since the other night, if that's what you're wondering."

"What's it like, man? I mean finding out you have a sister. Isn't it cool?" Aaron asked, trying to cheer him up or steer the conversation into a better direction.

"Yeah," Taz brightened, shaking his head vigorously and glancing at his friend. "Yeah it's really cool. I love it, actually. I was really excited. For the longest time I thought I was by myself and then she comes along and she's funny and she's nice to me and she gets it, you know? About my parents I mean. People always say they're sorry but they-"

"Never really get it unless they go through it." Aaron finished, knowing exactly what it was like. "I think you should go see her, man. I mean Hazel. There's no reason you shouldn't."

"You think?"

"I know so. We both lost family. Don't push her away before you lose her, too."

"Yeah."

They sat in silence for a few moments.

"What happened to your Mom and Dad?" Taz finally asked. Aaron chewed on the inside of his cheek, raising his eyebrows before plopping down and propping his elbows up on his knees, letting his arms dangle between them.

"My Mom," he started grimly. "She hasn't been around since very recently. Even now she sort of acts like I don't exist."

"What do you mean?"

"When I was younger, my Dad got crazy sick and she left him. Poof. Just like that. I mean she had a bunch of affairs beforehand with all these guys and of course all of them were married, too, but I was a kid so I didn't rat her out. I was just sort of there, like this thing she had to tote around. It sucked. She sucks."

"Holy shit," Taz grimaced. "That sucks, dude."

"Yeah. And then she pops out of nowhere in this freaking purple bathrobe with all these other insane ladies shooting people and slicing people and it's just weird. It's like I know her but I don't."

"Say something!" Taz urged. "Jeez, dude, you gotta say something! Not just to Johanna, to her too. You gotta learn to speak up for yourself. I mean it. You don't deserve that crap. You're one of the nicest dudes I know, so you need to get your lady, put your mom in her place, and don't let anyone give you shit, okay? You just gotta say something."

Aaron thought on this for awhile, nodding as he stared into the fireplace.

"Okay?" Taz pressed, Aaron sighing in defeat.

"Okay," he agreed. "Okay."


	20. Brotherly Love

_Broken-Lauren Hoffman_

**HAZEL**

* * *

I woke up in bed next to Cas again. Part of this had to do with the fact that we needed to ensure I wouldn't burn down another building. But another part, no matter how guilty it made me feel to admit it, had to do with the fact that I didn't want to sleep alone. Truthfully I missed Jamie. Cas was not Jamie, but Cas _was _a warm body that played with my hair until I fell asleep and kept me from feeling so restless.

He was annoying with his relentless attempts to convince me I needed him, but even that couldn't force me to lie about how he made me feel. Physically, he calmed me down. For the first time in months I felt like I could eat normally and sleep peacefully and not have to lie and fake and mask things up.

Jamie was ignoring me. I would lie and say it didn't sting, but there'd be no point in that. It _did _ sting. It stung because even though I remembered everything between the first time I'd ever seen him to the moment I'd blown up his only home, it wouldn't make up for anything.

When I'd seen him in the hallway two days ago at school,we'd both stopped dead in our tracks, not moving. Although it was only about twenty feet, it felt like there was endless space between us. The others had soon caught up with him, Darren and Stasi and Heaven and Troy, who had now decided he liked them after all, and it was still silent. They'd looked awkwardly between the both of us as if they were unsure they were allowed to talk, and Troy had been the only one to move in my direction to give me a hug and ask how I was. Stasi had given me a weak smile.

Minutes passed before Jamie had finally grumbled that they needed to leave and led the group away from me, leaving Troy to fret and join the Seven that I'd been clinging to since the day I'd ruined the Brooklyn Institute.

My memories wouldn't fix the fact that I'd hurt Jamie badly, on more than one occasion.

I knew how Jamie reacted to pain.

He wasn't the forgiving type.

I woke up because of all the yelling. The House of Seven was a big building made entirely out of marble, like Creto's Institute, and the sound of a pin dropping sounded like it was amplified by some sort of freaking megaphone or something. My entire body jolted upwards, Cas gripping my shoulder protectively while rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

"What? What is it? I'm confused. What the Hell-"

"Shut up!" I hissed, honing in on the voices. Making out the words was difficult through all the ruckus. "Do you hear that?"

"Yeah..." Cas grumbled sleepily, his voice raspy and somewhat alluring. My cheeks flushed slightly as I shifted away from his half-naked body. The voices grew louder even though I didn't think it possible, whatever situation going on downstairs escalating quickly.

"Cas?" I grumbled, straightening up now that I was more alert. One of the voices stood out far more than the others.

"Yeah, what is it?"

"Does that sound like...that's..."

"Taz?"

I nearly catapulted out of the sheets, getting my foot caught and landing on my shoulder against the wood floor. Cas sputtered, trying to untangle the mountain of blankets he'd been trapped under as I scrambled to my feet, flinging open the door. My hair was wild and I had no makeup on and I looked sort of like shit to be honest, but I didn't care. My brother was downstairs.

_ My brother. _

He had come to see me. I still mattered. I still had family, even if it only consisted of one person.

Taz was arguing with Gint and Rage at the front door, Gint looking red in the face as if Taz had said something to embarrass him. Rage, the massive beast that he was, just looked bored. Gint's accent was rolling out thickly, emphasized heavily with his anger.

"-my fucking sister, you have nothing to do with her and honestly I can call the cops or social services or fucking SOMEONE will come up here and don't you make me rip off your dyed-blonde bushy ass eyebrows-"

"-the Hell do you think you are barging in here and demanding to see someone who's under _our _protection? I thought you learned at Creto's place that being at the bottom of the food chain doesn't get you what you want and you can't just walk in here and expect us to listen to your dema-"

"Stop!" I interjected, feeling a little light-headed from the run across the building. Sweat had begun to build on my forehead, the hot summer air filtering through the house ever since I'd convinced them to keep the windows open.

God, I was out of shape.

Taz's hazel eyes flickered to me, brightening instantly.

"Thank you!" He cried in a mixture of relief and irritation, shoving Gint out of his way.

Taz wrapped his wiry arms around me, the hug bringing his height to my attention.

"Little brother..." I mused, smirking. "Are you getting taller?"

"I'm growing," he grinned. "It's called puberty."

"It's called acne." Gint teased behind us. Taz shot him a look.

"Ignore him," I insisted, still overjoyed with the fact that he had come to see me. "What are you doing here? I thought you guys, I mean-"

"What, you thought I was going to give up on my sister just because she burned down my room?"

"That's not funny," I said sternly, although I was grateful for his humor. "You could've gotten hurt. A couple people _did _get hurt."

"Oh yeah," Taz agreed teasingly, only furthering my guilt. "Xavier Denim won't walk for another month, but no one cares cause that kid is a prick anyways. Besides, I never liked that room very much. Now I get to sleep closer to Anastasia." he winked at me and I swatted at the back of his head, rolling my eyes before he pulled me into another hug.

"I missed you." He murmured into my shoulder, rubbing my back gently with his hand.

We sat in the large white room again, the place where all serious discussions seemed to be held in the House of Seven. Taz had waved off all offers of tea and coffee and snacks, glancing wary looks at everyone who passed through the room.

"This place is a total creep-fest," he grumbled quietly as I laughed into my mug. "What the Hell are you doing with these guys?"

"They're being nice to me," I answered softly, shrugging. It was a pathetic answer, but it was the truth, and Taz was just about the only person I didn't feel like I had to lie to. "I need it right now."

"You should come back home. This place sucks."

"This _is_ my home, at least for now." There was a pause between us, a space filled with the question I wanted to ask and the one he didn't want to have to answer. "How's Jamie?" I asked quietly. "And the others, them too." I added quickly. Taz gave me a small, apologetic smile.

"He's okay," he said softly. "So is everyone else. Aaron's gonna ask out Johanna."

"Really?" I asked, genuinely excited as I smiled. Taz nodded before clasping his hands and letting them hang between his knees, staring down at his tan knuckles.

"Everyone misses you. A lot," he added. His eyes met mine. "Stasi's been freaking out."

"She's so sweet." I laughed quietly, trying not to acknowledge any of the hurt.

"Jamie's the new Head Hunter," Taz cleared his throat and I sipped my tea, trying not to choke on it at the sound of the boy's name. "They've officially given him command over the rest of us."

"Isn't that good?"

"Yeah, but it's really no different than before. He's still an arrogant jackass, it's just that now he has a title to back it up. He gets to deal with really fun meetings between Downworlders and all the other freaks in our world to keep the peace."

"Sounds exciting."

"I'm sure he thinks so."

Another awkward silence. I didn't want to ask if Jamie missed me. Taz probably didn't want to answer that question either.

"Heaven and Troy are doing the dirty!" he shot out quickly, the mug tumbling out of my hands. I swore profusely, trying to hide the spilled tea that now stained the starch white couch. Taz made a 'yikes' face, terrible at being inconspicuous as he tossed a blanket over the stain in hopes that no one would notice.

"Seriously?" I hissed, shooting him a look.

"What?! I'm not in control of Heaven's lady parts!"

"I wasn't talking about her vagina, I was talking about the tea!"

"Oh. That? It'll come out with bleach." he said nonchalantly, literally waving my hands away as I tried to scrub it out. I rolled my eyes before burying my face in my hands.

"She must really miss Lucy."

"That or she finally gave in to Troy's 'dashingly good looks' as he likes to put it."

"We hang out with the strangest people." I sighed. Taz shot me a look.

"Sure, Miss Lets-Play-House-With-The-Fallen."

"They're not that bad."

"Yeah okay, whatever," he fired angrily, rolling his eyes. "I just think you should be more careful who you run off with."

"Coming from the kid who grew up with them?"

"I didn't have a choice, and they were assholes to me too! In case you hadn't notice, I didn't really speak when we were living at Creto's Institute. Hence the almost always being locked in my bedroom. I had to be there. I didn't know any better."

"And now you do?" I asked, somewhat saddened by his statement. I'd almost forgotten that he'd had a life before all of this, before I'd burned down their universe. All of them had a life, actually. I was too busy focusing on myself to notice.

"I've learned that not everybody has to be a complete psychopath to survive." he laughed humorlessly.

"Then what _do _they have to do to survive? Because I'm not doing a very good job of it."

"You'll be fine," Taz laughed, raising his eyebrows and whistling as he tapped lightly on the Brand against my chest. "Trust me."

"Do you know something I don't?" I asked slyly, raising an eyebrow mischievously. Taz grinned in mock arrogance, dusting off his shoulder.

"Only what I've heard," he said seriously, still smiling. "I'm pretty good at finding things out. It must be my persuasion and alluring charm."

"Or the fact you're a nosy little weasel."

"Yeah, maybe that too. Either way, I know junk. Junk you need to hear."

"I'm all ears."

My brother leaned in, his expression shifting into one of caution. Even when he was being weary, Taz's dark hazel eyes seemed to glitter with excitement as if he were still thinking about a good joke someone had told hours ago.

"Rumor is the Council's hounding Simon like he's a piece of meat."

"Not funny, our Dad was a werewolf, and they love meat."

"I- wait...really?" Taz asked, clearly distracted. I nodded and he made a face before finally deciding he was okay with it. "Wow. Cool...okay, okay, focus."

"Like you're any good at that."

"Anyways, they've been going after Simon ever since that night a couple weeks ago."

"And?"

Taz hesitated and I raised an eyebrow, trying to ready myself for the blow.

"They don't want to let you back into the Institute."

I could feel my heart thud heavily in my chest, the disgusting feel of rejection washing over me as I took in the news. Why was I surprised? I should've seen it coming. I'd nearly destroyed their home and had single-handedly caused them more problems in the last seven months than they'd probably experienced in the last seven years. If I was the Council, I wouldn't want me back either.

"Anastasia's been petitioning it ever since they proposed the idea and tons of people have signed but...you know how the Clave is. There's not a lot we can do. And Jamie..."

"Jamie's in the middle," I said quietly. "He doesn't want me back there either." I was going to say that Jamie didn't want me back period, but the idea was too difficult to cope with right now and made me more upset than I wanted to admit.

"No one knows what Jamie wants except Jamie," Taz tried, attempting to comfort me. "I'd bet money on him being furious that you can't come back but...he's...I mean Jamie's got his own Head spot on the Council now. Nobody's really sure what he's planning but whatever it is, he needs the Clave on his side. At least for now."

"Right, right."

"You just have to keep your head up," Taz said quietly. "You gotta have faith in the kid."

"I can't depend on other people to save me, Taz." I answered honestly. His face faltered, and I hated to be the one to shatter his outstanding hope, but the way we looked at life was our greatest difference: Taz was forever optimistic.

Optimists were just people who lied to themselves in fear of facing reality. Realists were people who were ready to take on the truth even if it hurt.

"I agree..." Taz said gingerly. "I just want you to know you don't have to do this all on your own."

"What if I do? What if no matter how badly you all want to help me, you can't? I'm the one with this issue, not you. I'm the one who has to finish this, whatever _it_ is."

"We're still a team, Haze."

"We haven't been a team for awhile kiddo, even you know that."

Taz was silent, his long fingers clenching tightly together. I studied him for a moment, wondering how long it would take for him to hate me too. It had seemed like every good soul I'd come into contact with had somehow been ruined by the ripple effect of my presence. Byron had only been cast under a spell because Pluemon wanted it to be easier for Creto to get to me. Nita had only been killed because she had the ability to double as Jamie, and Creto needed a way to get me to stay at his Institute. Wheat had only gone off the deep end because Nita was dead.

Blake, one of the Seven who rarely showed his face outside of his bedroom, peeked his head inside the living area. The bright light from the windows washed up against his ruddy face, giving his skin an even deeper plum shade than usual.

"Dude! We're like, talking." Taz fired in irritation. Blake rolled his eyes slowly, moving as if his arms were heavier than they looked. He was a pudgy kid, not fat, but not muscular either.

"I know..." he drawled slowly, his voice running like syrup. "They just asked...if you wanted something to eat. We're having...dinner soon."

Taz knit his eyebrows and gave me an 'Are you serious?' glance before waving Blake off with a long hand.

"No dude, we're not hungry. Don't worry about it."

"Alright...if you say so." Blake whined before closing the door slowly.

"What the Hell is up with these people?" Taz demanded, shaking his head. "Leave it to you to find the biggest bunch of freaks around town."

My voice echoed off the marble walls, bouncing back and forth so loudly Taz couldn't help but laugh either. It wasn't that what he said was particularly funny, it was because it was so ridiculously true that I couldn't help but find it hilarious. Out of all places to be, this wasn't where I'd seen myself going. Freshman year in high school they had us write letters to our future selves explaining where we hoped we'd be and what we wanted our futures to look like. I don't know about you guys, but becoming a flaming beast and raising a spawn from Hell while hanging out with half-angels hadn't exactly been on my to-do list.

When Taz and I had finally calmed down, my brother wiped his eyes with the back of his hands and laid them in his lap. I took them gingerly, comparing one of his arms to mine. We were nearly the exact same skin tone, Taz being a little darker than I was from being in the sun so much.

"Crazy," I murmured quietly, shaking my head. "Finding out you have a brother."

"Yeah."

"The only thing that seriously bothers me about this is that you're fifteen-"

"Sixteen."

"What?"

"I turned sixteen at the end of April."

"Oh. Happy late birthday from the crappiest sister ever."

"It was two months ago Haze, you had just gotten back. I didn't expect you to know."

"Still. I feel like shit. That's what I wanted to talk to you about though," I said briskly, gripping Taz's wrist a little tighter than I meant to. "You're fifteen- I mean, you're sixteen, and I turn eighteen in September. We're two years apart."

"Yeah, so?"

"They told me Mom died in childbirth. Dad died in the battle of the Second Uprising and that's why I can do this whole fire thing, Nathaniel gave her his blood because she protected him."

"You _would _be the one who gets to shoot fire," Taz said bitterly, laughing when I shoved him in the arm.

"I'm serious!"

"I am too!" he cried, still grinning. "Dude that's so not fair."

"ANYWAYS, like I was saying..." my voice trailed off and Taz became sober, like we were feeding off of each other's emotions. "Mom died when I was born. There's no way you can be here right now, two years younger than me. You're the younger sibling, you were born second. If we're right, I mean."

"You think we're not? Like there's any possibility?"

"I mean that's a pretty big factor," I laughed. "But we're the same, almost. Same color, same curly hair. Your eyes are like Dad's though," I said gently. "Simon says you look a lot like him."

"Simon Says stop moping," Taz teased, smiling easily. "We're not wrong."

"But Mom-"

"I know, I know."

"She's dead, Taz."

"She is dead," he agreed, pausing as he looked down at his hands. He had folded them together again, his thumbs waffling nervously over his knuckles. "But Dad isn't."


	21. Barbastella

_Hans Zimmer-Barbastella_

**JAMIE**

* * *

My God-Father sat lazily on the lowest level of golden benches that formed one of many wide circles around the room. The Gathering Court sat like a pit in the center of the Accords Hall, completely sound proof so that unless Byron meant for all of Idris to listen, we couldn't be heard outside of the walls. The room was set up in the shape of a clock, the golden benches sectioned off to represent Shadowhunters from different parts of the world. I wasn't sure if it went by country or by population, but the room was large and organized enough to entertain either idea. In my earlier teenage years I'd been sent here nearly hundreds of times for breaking one rule or another, and now here I was at eighteen, giving orders.

"Are you sure of what you're asking?" Byron murmured warily, his fluffy white eyebrows knitting together in concern.

I could see the rest of the Council raise their own in surprise at my request. It wasn't that it had been particularly unconventional or outrageous- but asking that Hazel be monitored was the first demand I had made of the Clave. They were probably astounded I had gone off the deep end in the manner my father probably would have at the fact she blew up my house, or more so than Isabelle was that I had even been brave enough to step foot in the Accords Hall after being "banished."

That was the beauty of having power in times like these; people gave you an inch and you could make a mile out of it with the right words.

"I'm positive." I said loudly, my voice clear and strong as it echoed through the large room. I allowed my eyes to travel among the faces of the Council, making sure to assert myself, but it had been no secret that I couldn't help but sneak glances about Hall when I'd first entered.

The Accords Hall had been refurbished since Jordan Perez had smeared the Guard Towers with demon blood and allowed for an invasion. The walls were now made of solid gold, the floors black and shiny underneath the sound of combat boots and dragging weaponry. The staircases were now black instead of white marble. The iron banister that I'd flown through and nearly fallen off of was completely gone. It seemed as though they'd tried to erase all memory of that night from this place. Pussies.

I'd pushed through the wide black iron doors like I had a year before, remembering the pain that had seared through the pit of my stomach and kept my mind racing most nights since. That was the night Dad had died. It was the night that sealed Mom's fate too, but I liked to pretend they weren't both my fault although I knew they were. If I had just gotten there soon enough...Simon had to clear his throat several times before I'd been snapped out of my trance.

The faces of the Council stared back at me now, an ocean of mixed expressions. I could see fear, anger, irritation, pity; all of the above, on those who had that large of an emotional wage. Before all of this I would've sneered at the very idea that they were so comfortable with themselves in public. I would've scoffed at the way they allowed their feelings to be seen so plainly across their faces. If they couldn't handle themselves in the face of an eighteen year-old boy, how could they handle themselves in the face of the enemy? It would've made me sick, and it still sorta did, except now I understood and supported it.

Things were meant to be felt as a form of punishment. There was a middle-ground, and it meant that you could feel everything your little heart desired as long as no one found out.

If you were afraid? Fine. Be afraid. Just don't make it obvious. Are you angry? Perfect .Take it out on the enemy. Sad? Whatever. Slap a smile on your fat little face and get on with the day.

_That_ is how emotions were meant to be handled, and they were here to remind us of our stupid mistakes. If we trained harder, we'd never find reasons to be afraid. If we kept thinking two steps ahead, nothing could ever get us angry. If we remembered not to get attached, we'd have nothing to be sad about.

I was in genuine pain when I stepped foot in the Accords Hall.

It was a reminder that if I'd been faster, I wouldn't be an orphan.

"I want her watched at all times," I continued. "Anastasia Lewis will help me organize and direct certain monitor parties so that it all runs smoothly."

"That couldn't possibly work," scoffed a long, pale woman with orange-red hair. The color reminded me of Mom, and I clenched my jaw a little, gripping the hilt of the Seraph blade so tightly the strap on my hip threatened to break. "There are far too many things to put together, by the time we make an orderly plan, get the volunteers together and send them out with all the proper equipment, the girl will be gone. We have no idea where she's currently being held- or where she'll go."

"Then what do you suggest, Delilah?" Byron hissed, the offense clear in his tone. I could see Simon smile lightly out of the corner of my eye, the both of us glad to have someone on the inside that truly liked Hazel. Prejudice had not been our friend in her case, as if it ever would be. As Delilah Wilt and Byron continued to argue, the rest of the Council chiming in every few seconds, I let my full gaze travel to Simon's aging face.

Over the years, his eyes had returned to their rich, brown "coffee" color as Mom had liked to describe it. There were streaks of grey in his unruly dark curls, long enough for Isabelle to still run her fingers through absent-mindedly as she did now. There were wrinkles falling into his soft skin, although "wrinkles" seemed like too flighty of a word for me to use. I liked to think of them more as evidence of living, the way I liked to think of the scars that covered every Shadowhunter's body. There were lines of worry, lines of laughter, lines of fear, of joy, of pain. I could see the crease that formed on his forehead whenever Ella ran too quickly, or Stasi didn't call back in time.

Simon's hands were soft, despite the years of fighting and struggle he'd been through. There were little silver hairs on his knuckles that made the corners of my mouth twitch up. I was hit with a memory, one of Mom and Simon lounging in the library one afternoon. She'd grabbed his hand suddenly, a grin spreading across her lovely face as she began to tease him.

"Gross," she chimed, her eyes twinkling. Simon rolled his eyes, lounging back lazily.

"What now?" he prodded. Mom ran a thumb across his fingers.

"You're getting old." she whispered, still grinning. Simon hadn't been able to help himself. Mom's smile had been infectious, and slowly it had crept upon Simon's features, erasing any evidence of life, all wrinkles disappearing within seconds.

The old man winked when he caught me looking at him, rolling his eyes and jabbing a thumb at the two Clave idiots still arguing above us. While I stood firmly on the tan granite floor, surrounded by golden benches filled with Shadowhunters in their black and silver silk robes, Byron was perched behind a podium high above the rest of us, the Shadowhunters representing America sitting stiffly behind him.

"None of this matters!" Delilah cried in a moment of lost self-control. "We have nor the time nor the organizational resources to carry this plan of action out before tomorrow."

"I agree," I piped up loudly, Ms. Wilt narrowing her blue eyes at me. One of her light orange eyebrows raised slightly in a challenge, her thin lips growing taut.

"Do you?" she asked coldly, clasping her long, bony fingers together in her lap.

"I do. Which is why I had Anastasia organize the groups and give them their assignments _yesterday. _Just to be safe," Delilah's eyes widened in a mixture of anger and confusion, murmurs floating all around the room as I turned towards the corridor that cut through the benches behind me, leading to a Golden door. "Simon?"

The old man got up from his seat before humming down the hall, his footsteps echoing loudly against the gold as he walked. I turned back towards Ms. Wilt as the doors opened behind me, whispers turning into fully-developed voices as a smaller, quicker pair of footsteps began to follow Simon's back into the Court.

Byron tried to hide a red-cheeked smile as stared down at me, shaking his head in amusement. Silver light shone through the windowed dome above us, washing over Anastasia's shiny black hair as she followed her father hand in hand through the Court.

"Inquisitor Byron," she said politely, her voice dripping with charm. Gregory Lionel was staring so intensely at my cousin he barely noticed when his wife began swatting at him furiously. "Hazel Kyle Roberts is being held at the House of Seven," several people in the Council gasped and I couldn't help but to roll my eyes. How dramatic could these people get? Although the idea of Hazel hanging out with Fallen angels made me extremely irritated, you didnt' see me gasping and wailing and whispering about it as if we weren't all adults having a serious fucking conversation. "Casper Atlas has been assigned as her Guardian, and has been acting as such since five months ago, January of this year when he found her at Dominus Creto's Institute for the Astoundingly Gifted."

I snapped my head to my left, Simon looking past Anastasia at me with a look of such confusion that I knew instantly none of us had known about Casper's position until now. There was no controlling the voices, people were shouting complete slurs and claims of disapproval across the Court so loudly that even Byron was having a hard time controlling them.

"You didn't think that was something we needed to discuss before you dropped it like a fucking bomb in the Court?" I hissed angrily, Anastasia flickering her black eyes to me for only a second.

"I knew you wouldn't handle it well," she whispered. "Turn around before they think we're scheming." I was pissed off, but I did as I was told, turning back to face the Council with my arms crossed in frustration.

"I told you to watch and report, not withhold information." I growled, not taking my eyes off Simon as he began climbing up the benches towards the podium.

"Jamie, the only thing stopping you from going over there and slaughtering everyone in the House of Seven is the fact that the Clave will want to take matters into their own hands and doing so would be against the Law. Now that it's been brought up in Court, you have to wait for orders like the rest of us."

"You're protecting them?" I spat, the betrayal overcoming me. "How could you do this to us?"

"How could you request that Thomas be kept in Silent City?" she hissed back. I clenched my jaw, trying to choose my words carefully. The topic had hit me like a wrecking ball. The truth was, I had never planned on telling her. I had never planned on her figuring it out, either, but Anastasia had a way of knowing everything, even when you did your best to keep it from her.

"He was a danger to you and everyone else on our team," I said lowly, trying to not to lose my temper as her lip quivered. "Now is not the time to get emotional about it."

"I can't believe you."

"Stasi, he was going to _hurt _you!" I cried, escaping my facade and facing her. I ran a hand through my messy hair, making a mental note that it needed to be cut.

"You don't know that."

"Everybody knew that."

"He could've been useful to us."

"Yes, drooling in the background while we fend for our lives would've been mighty helpful in times like these." I drawled sarcastically. "They poisoned his mind so deeply in Creto's Institute that he couldn't even remember his own fucking name-"

"No you're right!" Stasi cried, tears finally spilling onto her cheeks. "But he remembered _mine._"

Dread sank into my stomach like a stone as I tried to think of a point worth arguing against that. Anastasia was an eighteen year old girl, you couldn't tell her that anything she thought about love was wrong even if you had valid facts and pie charts. I felt like an ass.

I _was _an ass, but why couldn't she see that it was what needed to be done?

"This isn't about how you feel," I said calmly, Simon shouting into the Court for everyone to calm down. "This is about keeping our team together and working efficiently."

"What would you know about working efficiently as a team anymore?" Anastasia asked harshly, narrowing her coal-black eyes at me. Her mascara was smudging, but I figured now wasn't the best time to tell her. "Ever since Hazel came back without a clue of who you are, we haven't been a team. Don't get all high and mighty on me now just because you can turn your feelings off and on and the rest of us can't."

"Stas-"

"Whatever," she spat, wiping her eyes quickly so that no one could see and turning to face her father. "Now's not the time to get emotional about it."

I turned away from her, the sting of my own words biting at the back of my mind. This was our problem. Everybody wanted to feel. Everybody wanted to love. Everybody wanted something they couldn't have and because of this they couldn't _see._

It bothered the very essence of my mechanics simply because I knew from that point on I'd have to explain every move I made at least ten different ways so everyone could see past how they felt and comprehend it's purpose.

"Alright then," Simon breathed, shaking his head in irritation as the Council came to a quiet hum of voices. "If you could please just shut up, that'd be great."

Everyone was either respectful enough or appalled enough to shut their traps. Either way, it worked. Stasi breathed unevenly next to me, still trying to keep herself from crying. The fact that I'd made her so upset made me want to vomit. Simon ran his skinny fingers through that curly mop of his and sighed.

"Seeing as Hazel was brought to my Institute, she is my responsibility," he began warily. I could tell he was trying to choose his words carefully, the judgemental eyes of the Council flickering towards him with mixtures of anger and fear.

Very few gazes coming from the crowd looked supportive.

"It is our Law that Head of the Institute lays full claim to the children who are enrolled and train under their care. Therefore, Hazel is of my breach and will remain there until she turns eighteen."

"Oh, so we're just supposed to wait until she's of legal age to take action and continue letting her burn down the city until then?" Delilah spat, her blue eyes furious. Byron's own icy iris' drifted downwards. He was torn.

This was the hard part about being in charge, something only he seemed to understand.

No matter what you did you'd always be the bad guy.

"Byron..." Delilah pressed. "You know what must be done. Had the Clave known this girl even existed previously..."

"She wasn't a threat!" Simon argued.

"Well she certainly is now!" Ms. Wilt scoffed. "I'm surprised the Lightwood boy has yet to be punished for concealing such a fact from his own government!"

"Hazel Roberts is the very reason every man, child, and woman that attended the Fair last year is alive."

"And the reason it was attacked! Let's not forget the murder of Clary Fra-"

"DON'T YOU DARE BRING UP CLARY'S DEATH." It was Simon who'd screamed the words, but the shock of Delilah being horrendous enough to bring it up had frozen every inch of my body. Anastasia looked at me wide-eyed in anticipation and fear, unsure of whether to move out of arm's reach or coddle me. My God-Father was red-faced, looking just as furious as he did the day he saw Mom's dead body for the first time.

Ms. Wilt had been paralyzed with fear, her eyes wide as Isabelle looked on at her husband with pride.

Luke Garroway stood immediately, all eyes turning to the elderly man as he clenched and unclenched his fists several times, the apples of his cheeks a flaming red as he tried to keep himself from exploding.

"Clary Fray willingly sacrificed herself to save the girl and you know that Delilah," he hissed warningly, his voice loud enough to be heard but quiet enough to instill fear. For the first moment in my life I realized how unappreciative I'd been of him. "The Clave has the letter to prove my statement and it will be drawn forth if necessary. Clary and Jace's deaths were tragic ones," he continued warily. "But don't you ever in your life blame this poor girl again for what happened."

Ms. Wilt looked appalled at his forward bravery, shrinking in her seat slightly. Luke moved amongst the crowd towards the lanky woman who looked like she might pee herself should he raise a hand at her. We all readied ourselves for that moment, some of us silently praying he would do it no matter how much trouble he'd get in for such an action.

"Maia Roberts was Alpha of my Pack the day she died," he choked. "The girl would've been next in line had it not been for her...odd heritage. But there's still time." I could see the hope flickering into his nearly lifeless orange-gold eyes, weary with age. "There's always the option of her coming with us."

"And live where? Build a home where?" Simon challenged.

"Anywhere she wants," Luke said softly, the corners of his mouth twitching upwards. There was a far away look in his eyes as if he were remembering what it was like to run wild. "That's the beauty of it. She could go wherever she liked and still be protected."

"Putting her with a Pack isn't going to stop whatever she's planning." Delilah grumbled ruefully.

"Casper Atlas was assigned to Hazel because of his gift of negation," Stasi's voice came out quiet but steady, her eyes glazed over as she watched Byron evenly. "He's the only thing keeping her in control right now. If you take her away from that there's no telling what could happen."

"She nearly killed you all in her _sleep_," Delilah agreed, pressing the subject further. "Imagine what she can do when she _is _trying."

I couldn't help but keep quiet. There were so many things I wanted to say, so many people I wanted to choke out in this room, but I couldn't bring myself to say them or it do it.

I felt like the largest coward in the world, despite not having run from a fight in my entire life. I wanted to fight for Hazel, I wanted to fight for the Clave, I wanted to fight for my friends and family: yet here I was, fighting for nothing, staying silent because I was still riveted by the fact that although she didn't mean to be, Hazel _was _dangerous. So dangerous she needed someone else to balance her out.

Someone who wasn't me.

"Unless we Marked her," Luke piped up suddenly, as if the idea had just struck him. He rubbed his long nose with his hand, his olive skin sticking out against the golden walls. "If we allow her into the Pack she must be Marked, not only with my insignia but with a Downworlder Marking as well."

"The first time I met her she burned off my Angelic Rune...that's when her powers first started showing up." I added quietly, my eyes meeting Luke's for a moment.

"She chooses..." Simon whispered, blinking several times. Byron raised his eyebrows. "My God, she's choosing..."

"She's wielding angelic powers because of the angelic rune she's carrying," Stasi murmured. "If they branded her with a Downworlder Mark it would negate everything she's developed over the past year."

"You think she'd become one of them?" I asked cautiously. "She's never changed into a wolf before."

"She would if she bore their Marking." Byron said gravely. I swallowed thickly, trying not to think of the love of my life as a giant dog.

Clearing my throat, I silently reminded myself that now was not the time for that. The only way to save Hazel was to remove myself from her and keep her out of my thoughts in all regards not including that of a mission. That's all she could be right now.

Simon took a couple steps away from the podium so that Byron could take his place again. The old man's face was redder than usual with anxiety, and his blue eyes looked heavy from time and stress. I felt sorry for him. And I never felt sorry for anyone. A hush washed over the room as Byron made way for the final verdict. I bit down on the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood. Even then, I kept biting.

"Hazel Roberts will be under the care and responsibility of Simon Lewis, Head of the Brooklyn Institute along with those protecting her at the House of Seven. Her acceptance into the Brooklyn Institute lies solely in the hands of Simon Lewis, and those who aid in any rebuttal against his future decisions regarding said child will be punished. Should Hazel cause more issues causing injury or death to those around her, the previous will be held accountable and shall be punished with her alike."

"And what if she comes home?" Luke asked hopefully in the back. I was grateful he'd asked so I wouldn't have to. Byron sighed, taking a few moments to think before giving his answer.

"Should anyone make contact with her, or should she return on her own terms...Hazel will be informed of all options and their consequences.

'One, on Simon's allowance, she shall be permitted back into the Institute, ascending and abstaining from all Mundane school systems and activities, to learn and train with the other children. She will become one of us." Byron began losing his tone of authority as the weight of these decisions came over us all. They were binding, unfair, too black and white.

They weren't fit for her.

There was no way to keep everyone happy.

"Two, that she remain in the House of Seven and have little to no affiliation with the Institutes and their Shadowhunters young or old, nor their Council or...Inquisitor," he choked the last bit out, not wanting to explain the possibility of any of us losing her. There were dozens of people in this room who wouldn't miss Hazel if she were found dead tomorrow morning, but Byron knew that there were a few of us to whom she meant the world. "If the second option seems fitting for her to choose, Hazel will be under the occasional surveillance of our kind and will be punished for any acts against our community, or the Mundane community as well."

'Third, Hazel may join Luke Garroway's Pack, keeping limited contact with Shadowhunters and their Council alike. She will abide by all Pack rules and will sign the Accords with full knowledge of what the contract binds and demands with no argument, rebuttal, or betrayals. Should she disobey, punishment will fittingly ensue."

"And what's number four?" I piped up, the worlds tumbling out before I could stop them. Byron dragged his eyes up to mine with what seemed like incredible force.

"Four, Hazel will continue on her path of destruction, forcing us to bring...to take action and...to...swiftly carry out her..." Byron cleared his throat, trying to maintain eye contact with me as I clenched my jaw tightly.

"What?" I demanded. I needed him to say it out loud, to verify what I knew would be a possibility from the moment I met her. Byron's face turned beet red as the Council flickered their eyes back and forth between us.

"We must have her make a decision!" He cried, his voice wavering. This man was like a metaphor for the Clave as it fell apart in front of me, all because of Hazel, and I had no idea how to handle it. None of us did. That was the truth. That's why we had a Council, a group instead of one single leader. Nobody wanted to take the complete blame for fucking something up.

"She must choose, Jamie...we must have her choose. There is only one way to put a stop to her if she does not choose, and we all know what it is. Don't make me say it, child." he pleaded, trying to keep calm as the rest of them fidgeted uncomfortably.

I kept my eyes on his, curling my toes in my combat boots to keep myself together. If Hazel didn't figure her shit out, I was going to lose her again, for good this time. There would be no going back, and I would have to help make it happen.

"What happens, Byron?" I pressed. "What happens if she doesn't choose?"

The old man looked at me with sad blue eyes, fidgeting in his silk black robe.

"You know what happens, Jameson." he said gently, as if we were the only two people in the Court. "She dies."


	22. Reunion

_Ben Howard- Promise_

_Civil Twilight- Human_

_Captain Phillips OST- Safe Now (Extended)_

**HAZEL**

* * *

It was only a three hour flight from JFK to Miami, and an hour car drive to get to Palm Coast. One of the wonderful things about living in the House of Seven was that they had a ridiculous amount of money, refusing to divulge to anyone how they managed to attain it. I figured being a Fallen angel meant you'd have a crap life on Earth as punishment, but as Taz zoomed across the nearly empty expressway in Gint's Lexus I quickly tossed that theory aside.

"Easy on the brakes, easy!" Cas cried, clinging to the head of my seat as he sat on the edge of his. Taz shot him a glare in the rearview mirror before pointedly slamming on the brakes again, jolting Casper forwards.

"Who invited you again?" he asked, whirling around in his seat.

"Taz.." I murmured, trying to ease the tension.

"She did," Cas pointed a long finger at me, eyebrows raised. "She needs me here, so I'm going to be here. Get used to it."

"You'll get used to my foot up your ass if you don't shut up-"

"Oh wow, how original-'

"-Seriously dude we could just drop you off here and you could hitchhike home if you found anyone who's vision was poor enough to find you attractive-

"Come on guys!"

"Oh really? Hazel finds me attractive-"

"Really?" Taz cried, staring at me wide-eyed. "Are you serious?"

"-Don't find him _that _attractive-"

"Yeah okay that's why you keep sleeping in my bed-"

"-I mean who else in the House of Horrors is she gonna sleep with? You all look like garden gnomes so it doesn't-"

"GUYS!" I screamed, both boys raising their eyebrows and shrinking in their seats slightly. I could feel the tips of my fingers buzzing, the skin underneath them glowing as Cas gripped my shoulder from the back seat. Ice poured into my spine, freezing every nerve in my body until I finally calmed down. I rubbed my face in a mixture of irritation and worry.

Taz flickered his eyes between us curiously, staying silent as he turned back towards the road and began driving once more. I muttered a quiet, dry 'thanks' to Casper before leaning my elbow on my doorhandle and biting my thumb, watching the green palm trees cast shadows over the car as we continued down the road.

Taz hadn't seen our Dad since he was fourteen. They'd been writing letters to each other ever since the day he'd gotten taken to Creto's Institute under the condition that Taz never called him 'Dad' in any of them. When I'd found out he was alive, my heart had nearly stopped and the couch underneath us had burst into flames, explaining why Taz's left forearm was bandaged. I glanced at it, guilt washing over me as I bit the inside of my cheek. It was a habit I'd learned from Jamie.

There were too many things to think about and I couldn't find a way to prioritize them. There was Jamie, who I missed terribly, who probably hated me at this point. There comes a point in every relationship in which someone has to leave, and for a fleeting moment I had the crazy idea that Jamie and I could be different; that neither of us would leave because we loved each other that much. The truth was that I had never loved anybody before this, and the only thing worse than first love was first heartbreak.

Jamie wouldn't pick me over his people. I didn't want him to. Even if I _was _a good enough person for him to choose over the others, I wouldn't want him to do it. Jamie had a job to do, he had a destiny to fufill, and I had to come to terms with the fact that I might not be a part of that destiny even if it made my stomach turn. Just thinking about it made me feel like I was going to cry, like a ten-pound weight was dragging all my insides down even though they had nowhere to go. It made my soul feel heavy.

I missed his golden-green eyes. I missed the way his bronzed hair was always touseled or spiked up or washed over his forehead when he'd just woken up in the morning. I missed the short, straight line of his nose and the way his top lip was a little too full for the bottom. I missed how soft they were against my skin, and the lean muscles of his body. I missed the dip in his hipbones where the muscle formed a V. I liked to watch the muscles move underneath his shoulders whenever he trained, and the way he gripped his Seraph blades. The definition of his jaw had always driven me insane, like the way his heavy eyebrows casted a shadow over his beautiful eyes.

I could feel my fingertips humming again and I casted the thought of Jamie away, forcing myself not to linger on the memory of his face. It wasn't like I had any other fantastic topics to think about. Why hadn't my Dad wanted to talk to me as well as Taz? Why had they just..given me away? Nobody had ever told me how I was found, how I'd somehow gotten into the Foster Care system. Nobody had ever told me why Taz was good enough and I hadn't been. My brother had told me he'd been sent to live with our Aunt, a frail old woman who'd been dying for years by the time Creto had gotten to him.

"Creto said everyone at his Institute had a gift," I'd murmured curiously, giving him a look on the day that he'd visited me. "What's yours?"

Taz had told me he had no clue, and that nothing bad enough had ever happened to him to trigger it. There was a pang of jealousy there in my throat when he'd said it, as if he'd had the easy life and I'd gotten stuck with this demonic soul bullshit, but I knew better than to say anything. I knew I was blessed, even if said blessing brought me dangerous power.

I'd known since I was a kid that I wasn't built for an easy life.

People like me never were.

We pullled into an old parking lot that faced a long brick building with wide white windows and flowers in every available space. Taz stopped the car and we did nothing but stare for awhile. The sky was a rumble of grey, angry clouds above us. I was the first one to move.

The gravel crunched underneath my Converse as I stepped outside of the Lexus, closing the door gently as I stared up at the building. It seemed like a nice enough place, with the ocean waves crashing loudly against the shore behind it. You could see nurses bustling around inside through the windows, all smiles and cheer and happiness as if everyone in that building wasn't old enough to describe a T-Rex in vivd detail.

I followed Taz up smoothe concrete walkway and through the beautiful French doors, a large chandelier hanging over us and glistening in the tan marble walls. A bouquet of extravagent flowers sat on a small, round black table in between us and the front desk, making for an awkward obstacle as we moved towards the secretary, who chirped excitedly on the phone.

The woman smiled at Taz like she'd already known him, her white teeth and burgandy lipstick contrasting strangely with her white-blonde hair and overly-tanned skin. She placed a hand over the voice piece in the phone and nodded down the hallway the same way I assumed she'd been doing for years. My brother gave her a curt nod and turned into a corridor lined with blue and gold doors, a large dining area taking up the room to our left. Some of the old people smiled gently, simply happy to see a few new faces around the place.

Some of them couldn't see at all.

My heart began to beat faster as we made our way past door after door, drawing closer to the man that I never thought I'd see in my lifetime. As my feet crunched against the too-pretty carpet in the too-pretty hallway with it's overly decorative flowers and paintings and striped yellow wallpaper I couldn't help but acknowledge the fact that everyone in this building was going to die and every soul's main purpose on this staff was to make you forget it.

I swallowed thickly. My entire life I'd assumed my Dad was either dead or a deadbeat, and now that I knew the truth I didn't know which theory I'd liked better. Cas sensed my agitation, lacing his long fingers in mine. I appreciated having someone there but the actions felt wrong in front of my brother, the same kid that knew exactly just how much I loved Jamie Lightwood.

Cas' jaw wasn't as defined as Jamie's. In fact, now that I looked at him, his features were the exact opposite. Cas' sandy blonde hair swept down over his forehead in short waves. I had never been a fan of light eyes, even when I'd had them before my big blow-up, because I felt they were too honest and too clear. There was no mystery to them, as if you could see straight through the person who owned them; as if there were no depth to their soul; but that was a completely different case with Casper. His iris' were a gunmetal blue, like the ocean on a rainy day. When he wasn't trying to negate my abilities or using his own, the color was honest enough to bring you to tears. His innocence was what drew me to him, the fact that I knew he'd never lie to me, the fact that I knew we'd never have secrets unless they came from my end.

Jamie promised me mystery and brooding and hidden agendas and puzzles, and Cas promised me peace. His eyes promised unmistakable affection, the kind that wouldn't be hidden in order to play games with me. His thin lips curved upwards slightly, snapping me out of my trance.

"Can you two stop staring into each other's souls for like three seconds?" Taz grumbled, crossing his arms. I hadn't even realized we'd stopped walking, but there we all stood, room 4284.

"There's something I have to tell you first, before you see him I mean..." Taz murmured nervously. I nodded.

"Anything."

"He's burned. Badly. During the Second Uprising he'd gone to the Praetor Lupus after Mom had disappeared in order to find more help, but...uhm, yeah."

"Taz..."

"Sebastian Verlac, Jamie's uncle? He burned the place down. With Dad inside."

The mention of one of Jamie's relatives attempting to kill my own made my head spin. I'd kept thinking of reasons as to why Jamie and I shouldn't be together in an attempt to make myself stop loving him, and here was the biggest one of all. What had I been thinking? I came from demon blood and he'd been sent by the angels. We were on different teams, we always would be, and we always had been. I could see it now, settling some sort of family score, and I was taken back to that night in Alicante when I'd first been presented to the Clave at the ball; the same night Jamie's father had been killed. The Oracle of Venice had told Jamie that I'd be the one to kill him.

Maybe she was right.

I swallowed thickly again, a lump forming in the base of my throat as panic washed over me. Taz gave me a concerned look.

"You don't have to go in just yet. If you don't want to, I mean." he said gently. I nodded furiously, and we eased into the room, Casper and I staying behind the privacy curtain as Taz took a deep breath and entered. I gripped Casper's hand more tightly, simply because I needed something to take my agression out on. He squeezed back, kissing the top of my forehead before pulling my back agaisnt his chest and wrapping an arm around the front of my body. I let him hold me.

"Dad?" Taz asked quietly, his footsteps tapping quietly against the cold white ground. These rooms were not like the rest of the home. While the outside was pretty and bright and warm, the rooms were cold and quiet. They felt like peaceful death, and I imagined this is what it would feel like, laying in a cold bed day by day waiting for it to finally happen.

"My boy. How have you been?" the voice was gravel-like and gentle. It was warm and devestated all at the same time, like an old man who'd seen enough bad in his lifetime to appreciate any and every ounce of good. The bed squeaked quietly as Taz sat down on it, and I could picture him holding our father's hand.

"Dad," Taz said quietly again. "I want you to tell me about Maia Roberts."

The old man was silent for a moment.

"She was the love of my life," he croaked quietly. I imagined his throat marred with old burns, making it harder for him to speak. "I will never forget her face."

"Did you have a daughter with her?" Taz asked wearily.

"Straight to business, huh? No hello?" The old man was silent again for a very long time.

"Dad I need to know."

"Her name," Dad whispered, pausing. "Was going to be Hazel. Maia ran away with her in hopes of keeping her safe...but I never saw her again. Either of them."

"What if you could?" Taz asked. I pulled myself gently out of Casper's grip, pulling the curtain back ever so slightly. There was a sink under some medicine cabinets opposite of the bed, a small mirror hanging over the faucet the way it did in public bathrooms.

It was the first time I saw my Father. His reflection was horrifying, but even then I couldn't muster up anything but sadness. It was like seeing someone you loved, but didn't know. It was like...the first time I'd seen Jamie, when I'd returned from Creto's Institute and couldn't remember his face. I swallowed thickly again, tears rolling silently down my cheeks as I took in his charred skin. Although he was fully healed from the injuries that had occured years ago, his arms were still red and purple from the damage, soft and wilting with wrinkles. He was lean and wiry like Taz, with long arms and skinny but broad shoulders. He laid on his back in the sea of white, papery sheets, only deepening the color of his skin. I found his face and covered my mouth with my hand.

My father's features were marred. He was not the Jordan Kyle I'd seen in Taz's or Simon's pictures. He was an old man, with reddened patches of skin on his nose and forehead. His chin was purple, his eyebrows singed. He had no hair. I saw his hazel eyes stare up at my brother in adoration, the only thing left that seemed to be his. I leaned my head against the wall, sobbing silently as Cas pressed his lips against my shoulder.

"No, son," Dad croaked. "Maia Roberts is gone. She has been for a long time...I attended her funeral and I...I think of her every day. I loved your mother, Taz, I did. She was a beautiful woman, but you only give your soul to someone once. They have it forever, after that." the old man grinned. "I'll never forget her...soft hair...brown skin...beautiful amber eyes...Hazel...died along with your mother. We never found her. She would be dead by now even if they had made it, all alone in the world." I could tell he was growing tired, even though he hadn't been speaking for more than fifteen minutes.

"But what if she didn't?" Taz pressed, standing slightly. I swallowed, trying not to puke. I wasn't ready. Not yet. I couldn't breathe. The familiar feel of ice trickled down into my veins and I leaned my head back against Casper's chest, trying to keep myself from hyperventilating. "If you could see Hazel, what would you do?"

"I would cry, my boy. You'll know one day, when you have children of your own. They are the greatest...challenges you will ever bring upon yourself."

Taz flickered his hazel eyes to me and I shook my head profusely, silently begging him not to say I was there. I wasn't ready. I couldn't do it yet. I needed more time.

Taz pursed his lips, taking our father's hand once again.

"I know about the werewolves, Dad," he said quietly. The old man's expression wilted, and he shifted uncomfortably. "I know about the angels, and the demons, I know everything. Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because I prayed you'd never have reason to know," he whispered. "I knew in my soul that people like us couldn't have children with normal lives, but I had you and your sister anyways, for my own selfish reasons. I needed something to love, to depend on me. I needed to make something beautiful in this dreaded life of mine. You haven't...I mean you don't think you're...?"

"I don't know," Taz choked quietly, flickering his eyes back to the curtain with unease. I narrowed my eyes at my little brother, wondering if there was something he'd been keeping from me. "I mean I've...it hasn't happened all the way yet. Just really bad headaches on the full moon and sometimes... I don't know."

"When you were born I prayed you wouldn't be like me, although you can never be sure..." the old man whispered. "I will die soon, son, and there will be no telling what you'll be when I go. If there is any advice I can offer you, it's to cherish those you love. I drove Maia away because of my hatred and jealousy, but what we go through is no true excuse. Do not damage other people with the pain you feel yourself. There's something happening in the world, son. I can feel it in my soul. Something bad."

"I know, Dad...I'm part of it."

"You stay away, boy," The old man hissed urgently. "Do not tie yourself into the matters of angels and demons. You're too young. Hide. Run-"

"It's too late," Taz whispered. "I have to do this, we all have to do this."

The old man stared at my brother with full understanding that this would be his final visit.

"I will not see you again," he said softly, more of a statement than a question. "I will not see you."

"No..." Taz whispered. "This is the last time. But...If you could see Hazel, right here, right now...what would you tell her? What would you tell _us?_"

"Hazel would be as beautiful as you are handsome, I imagine," the old man smiled. "My babies. I would say to be brave. And strong. And that if you must fight this fight...do it passionately. Do it for those you love, and betray no one. Not for anything. Understand that who you are in this world has nothing to do with where you come from or what you're made of...but _what you do._"

I wiped my eyes and shook my head, trying to compose myself while Taz sniffled beside my father.

"How do we know if we're on the right side?" he whispered. "It feels like everybody I love is going in different directions."

"The right side has nothing to do with who you love, Taz...it has to do with what's right. You will step on toes no matter what you do...but you know the difference between what's honorable and what is not. Do not side with power. It's a fickle beast and will change it's mind several times. Side with the place that your soul takes you, side with those who defend and protect those who cannot defend and protect themselves."

"What if I die tomorrow?" Taz whispered, the weight of the question washing over me. It was completely possible. It was always a possibility, nobody truly knew when they would die, but more so for us. _Shadowhunters die and go missing all the time._ Even though I couldn't call myself a Shadowhunter, even though it felt like Taz and I didn't truly belong anywhere these days, the rule still applied to us.

"Death is easy," the old man smiled. "Life is the hard part. You'll learn."

"I don't want this to be the last time I see you."

"Nor do I, but we both know I wasn't much of a father, Taz. Don't argue with me. You cannot parent a child from a hospital room, can you? You've needed me in ways I couldn't comprehend, and I apologize deeply for that. I have nothing left. I don't have money to give you, nor extreme bouts of wisdom. But I love you. And I hope that some day, in some way, it will be good enough."

Taz sniffled and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand before kissing our father on the forehead.

"Dad..." he said huskily. "It will always be good enough."

I couldn't take it anymore.

"Dad!" I breathed, throwing the curtain out of my way. I stepped into the room, teary-eyed and red-faced, my hair frizzing in anxiety as I looked upon the old man. His hazel eyes sent shivers through my body, locking me in place as they went wide.

The entire world seemed to freeze as he watched me, his expression falling like something of desperation as he took in my face and body.

"Maia..." he whispered. I knit my eyebrows together in confusion as his mouth fell open, tears spilling over his eyes and onto his marred skin immediately.

"Dad? No, I-"

"Maia.." he whispered again. Several monitors began going off at once, Taz's eyes growing wide with horror as he began pushing buttons and running his hands through his dark hair, looking to me as if I would kow what to do.

"Dad?" He called, our father's eyes still locked on mine.

"My beautiful Maia." he smiled gently, the monitors buzzing ridiculously loud now. Several nurses exploded into the room, pushing me and Taz aside as they began shouting orders and pulling us out into the hallway.

"No!" I cried, trying to yank myself out of the arms of a guard. "Dad!" I screamed, his eyes still watching as they pulled me out of the room. "Dad!" This was happening too fast.

I had questions.

I had things I'd been wanting to tell him since I was five and began imagining what it would be like the day I'd found him.

"We've lost a heartbeat!" one of the women screamed, turning on several white lights.

"Dad!"

Taz allowed himself to be pulled from the room without a word, sinking to his knees in the hall as I thrashed about in the arms of security. Cas was shouting at another man, demanding that he let me go. My heart was beating thickly in my chest and I wondered for a moment if I was wrong to be so deeply upset by a man I'd barely known. I fell to the ground in a heap of confused emotions as I put my face in my hands, sobbing uncontrollably like I never had before. Taz pulled me into his arms, heaving to my feet and keeping me in his grip as we passed the staring faces and gaping open mouths, all the way to the beach behind the home where we both screamed and shouted and cried and threw rocks and sand and whatever we could find out into the water as if it would make us feel better.

We didn't move when the nurses came to check on us.

We didn't move when the ambulance came to take his body away.

We sat motionless, silent, staring as the waves beat endlessly against the shore, refusing to give up no matter how many times the tide pulled them away.

We were there for hours, until the sun began to go down, casting a red glare against our tan skin. Tears were dried against our cheeks, our breathing heavy and thick. The wind whipped my dark hair around my face.

Even when I hadn't meant to, I was killing the people I loved. I would always know my father existed. I would always know he was real. But I was simply a figment of false hope in his world.

When I'd walked in he'd mistaken me for my mother and the shock of it had sent him to his death. He didn't know who Hazel Roberts was aside from the daughter he never got to have. He didn't know I liked volleyball, or art, or running, or laughing, or what my favorite kind of music was.

He didn't know I could drive stick or make fire or that I sounded horrible when I sang in the shower.

My father never got to know me.

And now he never would.


	23. The Catcher in the Rye

_Ghost-Sir Sly_

**AARON**

* * *

"This one is my favorite." Aaron grinned, crossing his arms after handing the book to Johanna. The girl flicked her bright green eyes over the leather cover, running her fingers against it's spine while biting her small bottom lip.

The clouds were a bright grey, casting silver light into the large library around them. The glare bounced off of Johanna's white-blonde hair, a halo of light forming around her face as she smiled up at him. She was the most beautiful angel he'd ever seen.

"The Catcher in the Rye," she murmured softly, her voice gentle. "What's it about?"

"It's about this kid, and he gets kicked out of like the fifth school in a year, and he's just...it's just a really good book about him deciding what to do with his life. He spent most of it just doing what people wanted him to do instead of deciding for himself because he just doesn't know. He has all these questions for the world and nobody to answer them and he hates it, he hates the way things are and he just wants to save everybody."

"Does it work? Can he save them?" she asked curiously, her eyes wide. Aaron pretended to zip his lips, earning a small giggle from the girl. "He sounds like you," she said quietly after a short pause. "Cause he wants to save everybody, I mean."

"You think I want to save everybody?" Aaron asked, trying to maneuver his broad shoulders between the bookcases as they walked. Over the past year he'd lost what little baby fat he'd had left, leaving him with a strong, sturdy build. He was by far the biggest kid in the Institute, standing at six-foot-four. Next to him, Johanna looked like a midget.

"I _know _you do," she said honestly, laughing to herself as she gripped the book against her small chest. "Everybody knows you do, actually."

"Am I that transparent?"

"You're just so sweet..." Johanna trailed off, her pale cheeks turning scarlet as she tried to correct herself. "I mean to everybody, not just me! Not that I think you're sweet, or that I like you, or-"

"Are you saying you _don't_ like me?" Aaron asked warily, scratching the back of his neck with his large fingers. There was still a light dusting of hair that had remained from when Johanna had cut it for him earlier. Instead of his usual mass of curls, Johanna had somehow managed to tame it and cut it short enough that he could spike it up in the front.

"No! I'm not saying I don't like you!" Johanna cried immediately, more flustered than Aaron had ever seen her. Johanna stumbled against a stack of books someone (probably Aaron) had absent-mindedly left on the ground in between bookcases, Aaron catching her by the crook of her arm before she could fall.

Johanna stared up at him with her wide, round eyes, her small mouth hanging open as if she had forgotten how to speak.

Johanna was small, almost fairy-like with her frame and height, and Aaron's hand was large enough to wrap around her arm with ease. Although Aaron's skin had gotten lighter due to him spending all of his time in the library, he still looked ten shades darker than she did.

"Are you okay?" Aaron whispered, the corners of his mouth twitching upwards as he tried not to smile. Johanna blushed at the sight of his dimples, swallowing thickly. His heart was beating fifty miles a minute in his chest, the thud so violent he was positive someone could hear it in the next room. Johanna didn't speak, but nodded, and Aaron pulled her to her feet so forcefully that she tumbled into his chest, the book clasped between them as he wrapped his large arms around her and they stared at each other.

"Sorry!" He cried, the both of them an awkward tangle of limbs as she gripped the front of his T-shirt.

"It's okay, it's okay," she laughed. "My God, we're a mess."

"You're not a mess," Aaron said seriously, still smiling. "You're perfect."

"It's really warm in here." Johanna whispered, her breath quickening as Aaron leaned down towards her.

"It's summer, it's warm everywhere." he murmured, his lips barely brushing hers.

There was only centimeters between their mouths when Darren fell from the rafters. Aaron's eyes went wide and he pursed his lips, swearing silently as Johanna nervously ruffled her hair with her fingers and stepped away from him, her eyebrows raised.

"Holy shit," Aaron breathed, still awkwardly hugging the air. "Are you okay?"

Darren groaned from underneath the bookcase that had toppled on top of him, a mountain of novels burying him in the center of the loft. Aaron glanced at Johanna apologetically, the girl smiling shyly at him as they moved to free their friend. Darren shoved a hand into the air, waving it frantically until Johanna grabbed it and heaved him upwards, Aaron tossing book after book into the air behind him.

"Son of a bitch," Darren growled, burying his face in his hands and sucking in a deep breath. He knelt on the ground for several moments before rising to his feet and rolling his shoulder a couple times. "That's gonna fucking hurt."

Darren currently had a disheveled web of straight hair that had day-old gel in it, and his skin was dull. There were bags underneath his small black eyes, and a bruise was already forming against the left corner of his thin mouth.

"What were you doing up there?" Johanna asked gingerly, still tightly gripping the book. Aaron saw her hands and smiled, but Darren simply shot them both dirty looks.

"I was hiding." He grimaced. Aaron knit his eyebrows together.

"Hiding from what?"

"Anastasia."

"Did she catch you in her underwear drawer again?" Aaron asked sternly, crossing his thick arms. "I'm sorry dude, but I can't save your ass again, I told you not to do i-"

"No!" Darren hissed, casting an embarrassed look at Johanna while still rubbing his sore jaw and wrinkling his nose. "I'm just...avoiding her."

"What'd she do to you?" Johanna asked defensively, starting to pick up a few of the books and stacking them on a table nearby. She set down _The Catcher in the Rye _and Aaron frowned.

"Nothing, that's the problem." Darren muttered, sitting next to the stack that Johanna created and propping his elbows up on his knees. There were bruises and open wounds on his knuckles, but scars and Training wounds covered most of his body anyways. For someone who was second best on their team, Darren had an awful lot of injuries. He had a defeated look about him, and although he didn't have incredibly defined features, he had a way with his expressions.

"You're not making any sense." Aaron said, suddenly grumpy as he pulled one of the bookcases upright. The wood groaned in protest as he moved it.

"I might...have possibly told Anastasia I like her."

Aaron dropped the bookcase, the entire thing crumbling to the floor, pieces of wood snapping upwards into the air in a disasterous heap of flying timber. The noise of the catastrophe echoed off the walls of the large library, and as the trio peered over the banister they could see several irritated and concerned faces look up from their studies to see what was going on.

Aaron's lips folded inwards in embarrassment as he casted his friends an apologetic look, Darren shooting him an irritated glance. Johanna tried to stifle a giggle.

"Is it really that big of a surprise?" Darren snapped, wrinkling his nose in annoyance.

"You're mean when you're heartbroken." Johanna chided, folding her arms and giving him a dissaproving look.

"He's always mean," Aaron corrected, grinning. "But the heartbroken thing is probably making it ten times worse."

"Ha-ha." Darren said flatly, hanging his head in between his legs. Aaron frowned. It wasn't like Darren to be upset.

Lucy had been gone for nearly two or three months now, and not once had Darren complained or whined or cried about it. Anastasia had spent weeks helping him argue with the Clave over whether or not Lucy was guilty, because no matter how much proof they had, Darren refused to believe Lucy was acting on her own will. It was fascinating to Aaron, watching the different ways each of them mourned their losses.

Jamie was the type to fly off the handle, make some sort of stupid yet magnificently planned move in a moment of passion or cold blood.

Darren was just as ruthless, but the difference was that Darren was predictable. He'd spent every single waking moment in the Training Room. Even at Pinewood East, the highschool that only Stasi and Jamie had bothered to go back to after Hazel nearly ruined the Institute, Darren had enrolled in all athletic classes and was failing everything else.

Anastasia and Hazel had always been the type to do everything they could to avoid the problem, although it was hard to tell with Hazel these days. Aaron hadn't genuinely talked to or seen Hazel in so long he was worried he wouldn't recognize her when he _did _see her, and that frightened him.

Stasi, she'd just load up on fancy clothes and expensive shoes, spending a fortune on herself and wooing as many men as she possibly could until she inflicted enough heartbreak and pain on others to feel better about herself.

Hazel was, or used to be, the type to drink or sleep or party her way out of any bad thinking. These days though, she was the type to blow up entire buildings in her sleep.

Heaven and Aaron were almost the same in their coping respect. Heaven liked to keep to herself and wander about, and Aaron liked to bury his mind in the pages of whatever book he could get his hands on. Although Heaven had grown far more secretive than Aaron ever believed she could be, he still knew she was soft on the inside. Most of them were. The thickness of their outer layers varied, but each of them had a weak point.

Each of them had a moment of breaking, and it seemed like day by day they grew closer to it. It was scary.

"I thought you weren't a one-woman kind of man?" Johanna chided, her eyebrows shooting upwards as she leaned on the table next to him. Darren shrugged limply.

"I'm not," he fired. "At least not for anybody except her. I don't want to _keep_ anybody but her."

"Since when?" Aaron demanded. He understood that both Darren and Anastasia were promiscuous, but girls were different. Girls got hurt more easily, and seeing as Stasi was the only one who ever seemed to stick up for him when he did something idiotic or clumsy, he was highly protective of her.

"Awhile now."

"Well you're not alone, that's for sure," Aaron sighed. Darren raised his eyebrows with a questioning look. "Taz is practically in love with her," Aaron continued honestly. "I'm not saying you don't stand a chance or anything...I'm just saying be prepared."

"Great," Darren spat blandly. "More competition. Where is that kid, anyways?"

"You're not gonna beat him up," Aaron ordered. "Don't cause more problems than we already have."

Darren glared menacingly, but for once in his life he had nothing rude to say.

"What did she say when you told her?"

"We got into this huge argument," Darren sighed, rubbing his face with his hand again. "She got pretty pissed."

"Why?"

"She's got this idea in her head that I want her for the wrong reasons."

"Why _do_ you want her?"

"She's the most gorgeous thing I've ever seen-"

"Thing?" Johanna snapped. "You might as well quit while your ahead."

"I didn't mean it like that!" Darren fired back, exasperation written all over his face. He was known for having a temper, but this was the first time in a long time that Aaron had seen him look so desperate to get a point across. "It's like I can't even call her a person, she's too pretty for that. She's like a real angel, she always has been, she's always looked like that to me, and she makes me feel like crap because she's so damn smart. I could spend hours trying to find something wrong with her and I wouldn't come up with anything."

"She's not a person to you Darren, she's an object. She's a challenge."

"You sound exactly like her."

"Because I'm right."

"No!" Darren continued, his creamy cheeks flushing red. "I would literally do anything for her."

"That's infatuation, not love."

"What's the difference?" he sighed. Aaron stared at the floor and twisted his mouth into a sad frown. The only thing worse than being in pain was watching _someone else _in pain. It sucked. "I just want to have her."

"Love isn't about posession," Aaron said quietly. "She isn't something to have, she's something to care about."

He hadn't quite noticed it until it was too late, but Aaron's eyes had somehow drifted upwards from the floor to Johanna's heart-shaped face. She was staring at him, her cheeks flushed as she realized he wasn't talking about Anastasia. Darren flickered his bitter, dark eyes between the two of them before hopping off of the table and flinging the stack of books across the floor.

"Whatever," he grumbled, leaving the two of them to watch each other as he swung his legs over the banister of the loft. He dropped onto the first floor of the library, landing right in front of the Portal. "Love sucks."


	24. Unstable

_Christophe Beck-The Gift_

_Birdy-Not About Angels_

_Hans Zimmer- Electro Suite (Paranoia)_

**HAZEL**

* * *

Cas and I stumbled through the front doors of the House of Seven, our laughter echoing off the white marble walls accompanied by the sound of Gemma's stiletto's. The blonde girl swept her long, hay-colored locks over her right shoulder, the color flashing yellow against her royal blue party dress. I watched her smooth down a few hairs over her widow's peak and remove a smudge of lip gloss from the scar on the right side of her chin. I silently marveled at how pretty she was, even in a mess of sweat and body odor. Her tanned skin had a flush of red over her high cheekbones, her tiny rosebud mouth covered in red gloss. Her deep blue eyes flickered to me dismissively, as if she could read my mind and had already decided that she was better than I was.

Gint kissed me on the cheek swiftly, his sweaty mouth stinging the skin where they connected. I shot the boy a look, and he winked at me. His eyes weren't green like Jamie's. They were a pale, sickly color. I hated them.

"G'night Sweetheart!" he bellowed, stumbling drunkenly down the hall with Rage at his side. Cora rolled her eyes at them, giving me a quick nudge in the side with her elbow before following down the corridor and disappearing into her room.

"Well," Gemma said boldly, examining her nails the way she usually did when she was looking for an excuse to be somewhere else. "I'd love to stay up all night and swap horrendous stories from our lovely childhoods, but I hate you both and would rather roast like a turkey over a pile of coal."

"That can be arranged." I hissed acidly, the smile falling off her face. Gemma rolled her eyes at me, her heels clicking obnoxiously down the hall as she left Cas and I by the front door.

I watched her leave, shaking my head as the tips of my fingers began to burn.

"Easy," Cas laughed softly, rubbing my arm. The heat left my skin wherever he made contact, ice spreading through my muscles like wildfire at his touch. "Don't wanna burn this house down too."

"Not funny," I grumbled, looking up into his eyes. They were glowing a vibrant blue, the way they always did when he needed to put my fire out. "That was an accident."

"I know it was," he said honestly. "I just wanted to make you smile."

I looked at Cas with knit eyebrows, and I could feel my guard slowly begin to creep upwards from my toes to the top of my soul. He frowned at my expression.

"What's wrong?"

"Why are you doing this?" I demanded, swallowing thickly. It wasn't that I wanted to challenge what few friends I had, because at this point I was in short supply. It was that I was genuinely confused. I had heard about love stories before where somehow some girl manages to get more than one guy to pay her attention, but I'd never understood it. I'd never had someone actually do everything and anything I asked without questioning it.

"I care about you," Cas said quietly. "Isn't that enough?"

"Caring about somebody is never enough." I sighed, pushing past him. I ran my hand over the top of my head in exasperation as he hooked onto my elbow with his fingers.

"Hey, hey, hey," he coaxed, moving in front of me. "What happened? Five minutes ago we were in Glimmer having a great time and you- I mean I thought you were okay. I thought you were happy."

"I was happy. I _am _happy," I corrected quickly. "When I'm there, I'm happy, at least. But when I get back, and we come back here, every time it's like I feel worse and worse."

"We've been going to Glimmer and getting every other night for almost a month," Cas laughed. "You couldn't have said something sooner?"

"I didn't think of it at the time, obviously." I grumbled. "I just want to sleep."

I shoved past him again, waltzing my way through the swinging door of our bright white kitchen. I clenched my jaw in agitation, staring at the white cabinets, filled with white dishes, surrounded by white walls with white border and white linoleum and white appliances. There was a growing rage in the pit of my stomach, only boiling further when I tried to ignore it.

"Hazel!" Cas called after me, swinging the door open. "Can't you talk to me? Since when don't you want me around?"

"This isn't about you!" I cried in exasperation, throwing my hands up. I began ripping at the straps of my heels, throwing them angrily on the ground. "This is about me! This is about me being such a selfish brat! It's about me partying and drinking and getting high when some creature from Hell is plotting my death and it's about these stupid dishes!" I ripped open one of the cabinets, the entire door coming off of it as I shoveled out dish after dish, sending it crashing against the ground. "This is about all this white furniture in your stupid white house and the fact that I burned mine down!"

Cas watched warily, his eyebrows knit together over wide blue eyes as he raised a hand to calm me down, dishes crashing at his feet. The anger was rising quicker and quicker by the second, the glass beginning to melt in my hands. I screamed in frustration, flicking my hands back and forth in an attempt to get it off my fingers.

"I hate this!" I screamed. "I can get high all I want but it always wears off and when it does I will always be _this!_"

"Hazel.."

"I killed my Dad!" I cried, angry tears rushing over my lashes. I was even more pissed at the fact that I was crying in public, again, for the second time that week. "I killed him and Jace and Clary and who knows who I'll kill by the end of this! Who know who will be next! It might be you!"

Cas flinched as if I'd hit him, and he began shaking his head in protest, running a hand through his long blonde waves.

"No-"

"Yes! It could be you or Gint or Cora in this God-forsaken House of Seven! What the _fuck _does that even mean?"

"Calm down!" Cas ordered, the tips of my toes catching fire. I buried my face in my flaming hands and shook my head as the boy with the blonde hair promptly strode across the kitchen and enveloped me in his arms, dowsing out every inch of flame I had to offer.

It was like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders as I melted into the shape of his long, lean body, my face buried in the front of his button-down as he rubbed my back furiously, whispering words of comfort that I couldn't hear over the sound of my crying. I was pulled back into the nights we'd spent in bed, with him stroking my hair gently, whispering stories to me about the Angels and where they'd all come from.

I felt like a child, and the feeling made me nearly sick to my stomach. What the Hell was I doing at seventeen years old, being coddled as if I were a baby? It was like the weeks I'd spent being held inside the walls of the House of Seven had driven me mad and I had only just now figured it out.

"I hate myself." I whispered, into my palms, still pressed against Cas' chest. He let out a deep, throaty laugh, one that echoed out against the granite kitchen.

"Everyone here does." he murmured. I knit my eyebrows together, peering up from my cupped hands to look at him. He raised his thick blonde eyebrows at me, pressing his lips into a tight line. "Nobody's perfect, Hazel." he said gently.

"Why would everyone here hate themselves?" I croaked, my voice raspy. "They're not the ones burning down Institutes and killing their parents."

"That was an accident-"

"That doesn't fix it." I shot back, my tone clipped. Cas breathed in a deep sigh which I assumed was to regain patience, although it seemed like he had years of it when it came to me.

"I'm surprised you haven't figured it out yet," he knit his eyebrows together, watching me warily as he pulled himself away from my warming body, lacing his fingers in mine. I didn't want to hold his hand at the moment, but I allowed it to happen anyways. "You need air."

"Air makes more fire." I huffed childishly. Cas ignored my attitude and pulled me back through the House the way we'd come, closing the front door behind him.

I wasn't sure where we were walking, but he stuffed one hand into the pocket of his black jeans as we walked down the white cobble path and onto the sidewalks of New York, still gripping mine tightly with the other hand as we strode under the lights of the late night (or early?) city.

"It's three o'clock in the morning, nothing's going to be open." I quipped, just to be stubborn. Cas slid a glance in my direction with his beautiful blue eyes. "What?" I snapped.

"I can't tell if you're genuinely this big of an asshole or if you're just trying to ward me off."

"That depends," I muttered, somewhat taken back by his accuracy. "Is it working?"

"Not in the slightest."

"You know, letting me be an asshole only merits my behavior for further asshole-ness."

"Not always," he mused, the summer breeze washing against our skin as we walked. He was tall enough that I found myself tilting my chin upwards just to meet his eyes when we glanced at each other. "You're not as mean as you think you are."

"I can be."

"Everybody _can _be. But I've noticed you only choose to get like this when you feel like you're undeserving of affection."

I stopped dead in my tracks, my hand ripping away from his as I stared at him angrily, the warm air whipping my hair wildly around my face. Cas paused for a moment, stuffing both hands in his pockets and staring in the direction that we'd been walking in before turning slowly to look at me, biting his lip. I tried not to focus on the way it made me feel when _I _bit his lips, a habit that had formed during our many nights getting high in Glimmer.

"You don't know anything about me." I hissed defensively. He had no idea why I felt the way I did about myself.

"I know everything," He assured me, laughing without humor. "I know about your parents, your Foster parents. I know about the dog you had when you were seven, I know about how you broke your arm when you were eight. I know it all."

"You're lying."

"You can be as stubborn as you want, Hazel," he shrugged. "I'm not going anywhere."

"What are you?"

"Whatever you need me to be."

They were words one often used when playing games, or flirting, but there was an honesty to Cas' tone that I couldn't ignore. I could feel the walls I'd built over the years crumbling into dust as he stared at me with his clear, blue-grey eyes. The wind blew again, tussling his blonde waves.

"You know you can trust me." he said gently, his expression softening.

"How?" I whispered. There were a few yards between us, taxis and people bustling around the force field we'd seemed to build between us and the city. It felt like he was right next to me even though I couldn't reach him.

I swallowed thickly, a lump forming in my throat and swallowing every breath I took before it could get to my lungs. This had been one of my less-prioritized fears over the past months, one that had started from the second I'd felt his icy aura trickle into my veins the first time we'd met. I _liked_ him. Not in the "I'm grateful that you're around to keep me from exploding and you're a cool person to talk to" kind of like, but the "I want to touch you and breathe in your scent" kind of like.

It was different than Jamie because I _loved _Jamie, and Jamie had a way of evoking a passion inside me that had nothing at all to do with Heavenly Fire. Jamie was combative and fearless and sexy and annoying all at once, and Casper was peaceful and honest and silently strong in a way that gave me a stable feeling I'd never experienced in my life. I had a deep gut feeling that Cas would never leave unless I ordered him away, and even then he might've argued against it.

"I think you know," Cas broke my train of thought, and our silence. "All the stories about Angels and the punishments they have for sinning in Heaven...for sinning on Earth. Haven't you ever wondered about the ones that fall from the sky?" he took a step towards me, my entire frame frozen in place.

"They get their wings ripped out," I whispered, barely able to get out a few good words without choking on them. "And they get sent to Hell."

"Unless the Higher Angels are feeling merciful...unless we ask for forgiveness."

"And you..."

"Fell out of Heaven with the rest of the Seven years ago."

I swallowed thickly again, my eyes trailing over the carved planes of his face, his thin soft lips.

"How did you find me?" I asked, the ice in my chest melting slightly. It felt like I was nearing the end of a book, finally reaching some of the many answers that I'd begun searching for since the day I'd met Jamie Lightwood and followed him home.

"I got assigned to you," Cas answered honestly. His blue eyes flickered down towards my balled up hands, which had begun to glow slightly. "Each of the Seven were assigned to one of your friends, actually. But you were mine. You _are..._mine." He whispered the last few words carefully, as if he didn't want to use them incorrectly.

"Why us? Why are the Seven guarding me and my friends?"

"They wouldn't tell us everything," Cas murmured. "But from what I heard...you'll need us more than you want to believe."

"The rest of the Seven hate my friends," I fired quickly, the walls coming up with such speed it was almost inhuman. The glowing had spread to my wrists now, and I could imagine my cheeks flushing crimson in my snap of caution. "They wouldn't help us." I folded my arms, trying to hide my light as a little girl walking past us with her mother glanced at me unnervingly.

"They would if they got them back into Heaven," Cas laughed, as if I'd be surprised. "You have no idea what people will do to stay out of Hell." he took another step towards me and I backed away.

"Hazel..." he coaxed. "You can make out with me every other night and take drugs under my watch while sleeping in the same bed..." the corners of his wide mouth twitched upwards and I shot him the greatest glare I could muster. "But you can't trust me to come near you all the sudden?"

"Yes, well, _all the sudden _I'm realizing you left out a lot about you and your friends."

"You never asked the right questions."

"You sound like a faerie."

"I lived with them for awhile, in the Seelie Court." he admitted. "I didn't know where to find you, and there isn't much faeries don't know, so it was the first place I went looking."

"And how'd that pan out?"

"It panned out well obviously, considering I found you at Creto's Institute a month later."

"What did you do?" I demanded, beginning to circle around him and appraise him with my eyes. I was looking for a marking, some sort of proof that he was what he claimed. "If you were all kicked out of Heaven, what was it for?"

"Seven Deadly Sins," Cas grinned dangerously, and it was the first time he'd ever given me a hint of mystery. It was the first time he looked genuinely sexy. "We each have our specific vices. We were assigned here to test them out, to work on our selflessness."

"What's yours?"

"Anger." he grinned again. I shot him a look and crossed my arms as he watched me over his shoulder for a moment before turning to face me.

"You're one of the most patient people I know."

"That's why I'm dealing with _you_," he laughed, earning another glare. "You're one of the most difficult people I've ever met in my two lives, I'm starting to think the Angels were hoping I'd fail. We're sent here to be challenged, Hazel."

"And I challenge you?"

"Like no one else I've ever met."

It was quiet again for a moment as I finally decided he was worth listening to.

"What about the rest of them?" I demanded.

"Gemma...her Jealousy." I began thinking of the way the blonde girl hated every other female she came into contact with.

"Why would Gemma be jealous of anyone?" I fired. "God, that's annoying."

"It is," Cas agreed. "But you should hear her side of the story some time. I think you'd be surprised."

"Gint?"

"Pride."

"I could see that." I mused. I began walking, keeping my arms crossed so that he wouldn't try to hold my hand again even if I wanted it. Cas followed. "Rage?"

"Gluttony."

"No wonder he's so huge..." I murmured, thinking of the brown boy's massive frame and monstrous hands. He could probably kill me with a single finger if he so wished. "Cora?"

"Greed. You've never been in her room, but you'll find heaps of junk in there. Gold, stolen watches, stolen diamonds, stolen shoes-"

"Cora doesn't even wear diamonds." I said flatly, trying not to laugh.

"Exactly," he smiled. "And then Blake...Sloth."

"Is that why he always talks like he's out of breath?"

"Yep, but it's not really his fault." Cas' happy expression faltered slightly, and I raised my eyebrows at him. "Before he died, he lost his brother to hay fever. After that he just refused to leave his room or do anything. Blake's wasn't really a fair situation."

"It rarely is." I said quietly, Blake's red, pinched face flashing across my mind.

"So what's the deal?" I asked, stopping again.

Artificial light poured out of apartment buildings and ad screens and business windows and stop lights and vehicles and flashed against our bodies as if we were a giant billboard. We had stopped in the middle of the sea of people again, many of them voicing their irritation as they walked around us. I didn't know how, but with Cas I always managed to get lost in a crowd. You don't have any idea how relieving it was to be overlooked, to not be stared at like you were some sort of mutated freak. To feel human again.

"I protect you," Cas stated simply, looking down at me. "No matter what it takes."

"And if you die in the process?" I demanded. "You do realize there's about twenty people who want me dead?"

"That's twenty people who have to get through me first." Cas grinned. I studied him for a moment. "You're the only person on the face of this Earth who concerns me. You come first."

It was because Cas was selfless and only thought of me that I was able to like him. It was a stingy, selfish, terrible thing to feel; to care for someone mainly because they cared only about you. Never in my life had anyone loved me unconditionally.

Foster parents had always been expecting a check with my arrival, boyfriends had always expected to get laid, friends had always expected to mooch off of my Foster Parents' money...yet here was a boy, unashamed, telling me I was the only person he truly cared for.

When Cas didn't bend down to kiss me, it made me like him even more. And it made _me _stand on my toes and tilt my face up to kiss _him. _We were lost in the lights and the people, the same way we always seemed to be with his cool lips working against mine with a gentleness I had never felt before. It made me realize then that I was the aggressive one.

In this pairing, I had the control, I had the forcefulness, and I'd always used it because I was afraid to be overpowered. I didn't have to worry about that now. I didn't have to be mean, or pushy.

I pulled away from the boy, the both of us looking at each other curiously as though we both had questions we weren't bothered to ask yet. His steely eyes washed over me and I felt paralyzed, his freezing aura washing over my skin and seeping through my tight black dress.

I snapped my head in the direction of several loud, fearful voices. I could see a crowd forming around a hole in the ground, a crater that was growing faster and faster by the second, hollowing out until I was sure it was at least a hundred feet deep. The pit began glowing red, the street around it crackling with orange light like lava as the glowing grew brighter and brighter.

The screams started when the first demon appeared.

There were dozens of them, snarling and hissing and screeching as they attacked anybody they could get their claws on. I could see a body rising from the pit. It was a man. It was beautiful man, actually, with a thick, chiseled jaw and carved lips. From where I stood his eyes looked black as night, his blonde hair slicked and groomed to dip just above his right eyebrow and curl. The man was wearing a black tailored suit with a blood-red tie, his broad shoulders glowing against the light behind him as he rose out of the pit and landed gently on his feet. His black Italian leather shoes tapped idly against the ground as he gave a dazzling smile, glancing proudly amongst the chaos.

The next individual to emerge from the pit was all too familiar.

Amara.

Her black, tar-like skin was glowing with power. Her lips were covered in blood-red lipstick that matched her long, glittering dress and the man's tie. The dress dipped below her navel, with a silt so high you could nearly see the area between her legs. The moment she landed barefoot next to her new friend, she grinned at me.

It was like being sucked into a vortex.

The air around me was suddenly too tight for me to breathe and I felt myself buckle against Cas' body, unable to look away from the deadly woman as she trained her flaming orange iris' on me. I could feel the insides of my body _shifting _as she willed them to, the air forcing itself from my crumpling lungs. My eyes began to water as the most painful headache I'd ever experienced hit me like a wrecking ball.

The only thing I could hear now was my own screaming.

The ground shifted underneath us, screams erupting from the crowd somewhere to our right as we were jolted about on the shaky ground. Amara's eyes snapped away from mine for a moment and I was suddenly free of her invisible grip, life rushing back into my body like cold water on a hot summer day.

Everyone lurched in one direction or the other, Cas gripping my elbow to keep me upright as I jerked around. The gravel underneath our feet began to split, the crowd separating as a large crack stretched it's way across the street and through the block, running right in between Cas' feet and mine.

We were separated by the fault.

One of the ad screens overhead exploded, sparks flying everywhere as pieces of metal began sinking to the ground, destroying vehicles, people, windows, anything in its line of gravity. Cas was calling my name on the other side of the fault, but I couldn't pull my attention to him.

My focus followed the line of the fault, through the pedestrians climbing on top of one another, trying to get to safety one way or another as they grabbed their children, ran in separate directions, pushed their way into stores. The thick gap in the concrete led straight to a teenage boy.

His palms were on the ground as if he too had been jolted by the force of the shaking, but by what I saw, he was the one who'd caused it. The fault begun at his fingertips, his knees pressed hard into the ground. Panting, he warily lifted his head of shaggy dark hair, his hazel eyes finding mine immediately.

Taz.


	25. The Lightning Strike

**(AUTHORS NOTE- HOLY SHIT GUYS I FINALLY FOUND SOMEBODY WHO LOOKS EXACTLY LIKE JAMIE. BRENTON THWAITES. YUM.)**

_John Murphy-Strobe (Adagio)_

_Two Steps From Hell- Black Blade_

_Requiem for a Dream Remix_

_Two Steps From Hell-Master of Shadows_

_Hans Zimmer- ElectroSuite (Paranoia)_

_Alexandre Desplat-The Ressurection Stone_

* * *

"Hazel," Cas breathed warily across the fault. I kept my eyes on my brother, who was now staring at his hands as if he didn't recognize them. "I think we figured out what your Taz's gift is."

A gutteral scream snapped me out of my fixation on Taz and I whipped my head around back towards the pit in the middle of the street intersection where Amara and her new friend were staring at my brother with unnerving intensity. Demons were pouring out of the crater they'd created in the Earth. I reached down to my thigh automatically, an action I'd always carried out before Creto had taken me hostage. A freezing fear washed over me as I realized Ember was no longer strapped to my thigh, but in a glass case in the Institute where Simon had placed it after it was confiscated.

I snapped my eyes to Cas, who was already on his feet and slicing through the first wave of Ravanors that had hurled themselves at him. He cut upwards, whirling around and grabbing a forearm-length dagger from the sheath on his belt and tossing it to me over the fault. The blade landed in my hand, cutting across my palm before I grabbed the hilt with my right hand, slicing through a Purified Soldier right before he brought his sword down upon me.

Taz was standing shakily to his feet, still staring at his palms. The Earth beneath us began to quiver again, every pebble and loose bit of debris rattling against the ground before beginning to hover in the air. I was stuck between watching my brother and protecting myself as demon after demon launched itself towards us.

Casper was moving up the faultline now, a cloud of ash surrounding him as he tried to find a place to cross over to me. I was so caught up in his movements, so rusty from the lack of training that a Purified Soldier wrapped his arm around my neck, pressing his hand against my forehead. I waved the dagger around wildly, thrashing in the man's arms for several minutes before I began to feel the heat in my toes. It spread rapidly, shooting up my body quicker than it ever had before and flaring at the neck, flame sprouting out of my skin and singing the man's skin. He yelped, ripping his arm away and giving me just enough time to whirl around, twisting the dagger in my hands and thrusting it underneath his breastbone.

The feeling of shoving a blade through someone's body was unfamiliar and almost made me queasy for half a second; I had to remind myself that these things were here to kill us. It was like the fire burning inside my veins had taken over every inch of me and my conciousness, the blade moving as if it were an extension of my own arm. There was a mountain of ash so thick I could barely see five feet in front of me, but as a thick, black arrow tipped with golden feathers landed in the throat of a demon to my left, my stomach rose and sank all at the same time.

Heaven reloaded her crossbow across the street, Stasi and Aaron and Darren following her lead as they poured into the sea of demons that filled the block. I watched as my old friends launched themselves at any evil living creature they could find. Anastasia's Elephant was already flying through the air, glinting in the streetlights as it landed in the chest of a Purified soldier. Another of Heaven's arrows sailed past my head into the throat of a demon who'd crept up behind me.

I whirled around, promising myself I'd get a chance to talk to them after the fight although I wasn't sure it was entirely true. As I sliced through attacker after attacker I noted that it wasn't because I didn't have enough confidence in the fact that we'd be able to win, but the fact that I didn't know if I could face them when we did. What would I say? What would they do?

"Duck!" I did as I was told, bending backwards at the waist just in time for Aaron to swing his axe over my body and into the spine of a Soldier. I gripped the wooden shaft of Aaron's weapon, swinging underneath it back the way I came and whirling, the dagger in my right hand as I slammed it into the skull of a demon.

Darren was swinging his Morning Star wildly, the metal spikes cutting through the circle of demons that had surrounded him. Anastasia was sprinting towards my brother, the rocks still levitating around him like some sort of force field. I snapped my head towards a scream to my right, a woman clutching a baby to her chest as a Ravanor demon with spikes and dripping fangs stalked her every movement.

I followed Stasi's lead, sprinting, the ground quaking around us again as Taz went through another fit of twitching, his face contorted as if he were in the worst pain of his life. My brother dropped to his knees, the fault growing larger in the intersection where he connected. A pair of lean, sturdy arms wrapped around my waist, halting my run so harshly my knees rose up. Cas heaved me behind him, running his sword through the air. A demon lay in a puddle of twitching black matter, ash exploding all around us in the place I would've been if he hadn't caught me.

"Go," he ordered breathlessly, pushing me towards Taz. Thoughtlessly, I brushed my fingers against the skin under his right eye where a gash had created a thin trail of blood. There were bruises on his knuckles, the front of his shirt was torn, and he was leaning on his left leg as though the right was injured. "Go!" he demanded again, pushing me further. We kept our eyes on each other for a few more moments before turning our backs and going our separate ways.

My hands came to life, fire blazing on my palms as I sprinted towards the last bit of family I had left. Taz was trying to control himself, every move he made causing another shift in the Earth beneath our feet. Stasi was protecting him as best as she could against the overwhelming mass of demons, her pale cheeks flushing a scarlet red as she panted for air. Anastasia fought like a dancer, each move as graceful and fluid and soft as the next. I watched as she flung Elephant in calculated directions all around her, black and orange ash littering her Shadowhunting gear as my brother tried to gain his self control.

Gripping the back of a Purified Soldier's gear, I flipped him over my shoulder, his body landing on the concrete with a thud behind me. I did whatever I could to help the friends I passed, tipping the front of swords, swooping someone off balance, burning the back of someone's neck. It was minimal, my main focus Taz, and I silently wondered if this was I sign that I didn't belong on a team. Taz was one of the two people I was positive I loved.

"Hazel!"

I stopped mid-run, Cora struggling under the weight of a demon as it snarled at her over her blade. My eyes flickered between my struggling brother and my struggling friend. There were only seconds to choose. So I moved.

Impulsion was going to be the end of me. I changed direction, the ground crackling under my feet as I neared the crevice in the ground near the fault. I moved to the absolute edge, not jumping until there was no more Earth under my feet for support. My body launched through the air, the fault hissing and burning, the smell of sulfur wafting through my nose as I passed over it. My fingers clambored onto the surface of the ground, the top half of my body connecting with the gravel as my feet searched for any kind of ledge to heave me over. I leaned onto my forearms, swinging one leg over the edge of the fault before quickly rolling onto my back.

My feet connected with the ground in a matter of seconds, and I was sprinting to Cora with full force. There wasn't an inch of my skin that wasn't glowing now as I closed the space between us, my body colliding with the Ravenor's like a wrecking ball. Careful to dodge the tip of Cora's blade, I wrapped one of my arms around the demon's throat, the both of us rolling onto the concrete. It screeched, writhing in my grip before I snapped its neck, the body hitting the ground harshly. Cora sat up, propping her elbow up on one of her knees and panting as we looked at each other warily.

"Thanks." she breathed, her small shoulders heaving. Her backwards baseball hat was crooked.

"No problem." I muttered, rubbing my face with my hand and standing to my feet. Cora's eyes went wide, her mouth opening to say something as a pair of hands grabbed the back of my dress. Cora dove at my feet, swinging her blade in the direction of my attacker but it was too late. The Soldier hurled me over his shoulders and once again I was sailing through the air like a rag doll, my dark tresses whipping wildly around my face as I flailed.

Taz shouted my name, Stasi looking up in a moment of weakness, leaving her open for a Soldier to swing on her. His fist connected with her jaw, knocking her to the ground as Taz sprinted forwards in an attempt to catch me. I began to catch fire like a meteor, the ground shaking underneath my brother as he ran.

"Don't!" Stasi screamed, still fending off her attacker. "You guys can't tou-"

It was too late.

I collided with my brother, sparks of electricity crackling through the air like lightning. The hair on the back of my neck stood straight up, every muscle in my body tensing as we hit the ground with a snap. The ground crackled underneath us, jolts of electricity shooting through the New York sidewalks as several people screeched, dropping to their knees in heaps of stiff muscle.

The demons were howling in pain, their bodies twitching until they exploded into piles of ash, several of my Shadowhunting friends dropping their weapons against the concrete as they singed their palms. My eyes fluttered hazily, my body still surging every few seconds with the electricity coursing through my body. Taz, face down a few feet away, wasn't moving.

I yelped and scurried to my feet as a blade dragged across the space underneath my left jaw. A Soldier advanced on me as I stood on shaky, uneven feet, my fingers still brushing against the ground as I staggered every so often. My hand closed around my neck, blood painted against the skin of my palm, glittering in the streetlights above us as I looked at it horrified. The man smirked slightly, a deadly glint in his eye as he moved towards me. He had all the grace of a deadly feline, reminding me of Jamie for the slightest second before he screamed, thrusting the blade towards my chest.

Sidestepping the weapon, I grabbed the hilt of the man's sword with my right hand, using my left elbow to connect against his jaw. The side of his face slacked with a satisfying snap, his grip loosening on the blade enough for me to twirl it towards us and thrust it into his abdomen. I caught a glance of Amara's entertained face as she watched me from afar, more demons crawling out from behind her, the bottom of her red dress ruffling slightly in the wind of their movement.

Pulling the blade from the Soldier's chest, I realized his sword was much heavier than those I was accustomed to, the metal weighing me down like a ton of lead. It felt like the blade was pulling the veins out of my hands, like there was a weight creeping itself into my arm. Demon metal. I let the weapon clatter to the ground immediately, turning on my heels to glance back at the woman who was being stalked. I didn't think before I moved, hurtling myself towards her and her child.

Weaponless, I stood between them and the Ravenor demon licking his fangs as he advanced in the chaos around us. I could feel the blood still dripping from my left palm, and now my neck as I panted, one arm staged protectively in front of the pedestrians behind me. The tips of my fingers began to glow, a familiar burn rising in my stomach as the heat spread up my limbs. The demon kept coming, only a few yards away as he coiled backwards on his hind legs, the muscles tightening as he readied to pounce. I rocked back on my heels, sprinting straight for him.

We collided in the air with the sound of thunder. The demons fangs snapped inches away from my throat and I gripped its jaw, the pulsating electricity surging through me just as it had moments earlier. The Ravenor in my hands let out a horrid, gutteral screech as I fried every nerve in its body, my lightning coursing through each of its muscles as it went rigid in my grip. I shoved the dead creature off of me as it began crumbling into ash. I panted in the cloud of dust, lying on my side and staring at my hands in wonder as I tried to regain what strength I had left. It had been a long time since I'd had to fight something that wasn't my own conciousness.

There was a figure moving in the ashes and I propped myself up on one elbow, my free hand glowing in preparation as I waited anxiously for it to come closer. My heart raced inside my chest, the blood pumping thickly through my veins as I readied myself for whatever may come. I pushed myself to my knees, one of my feet making it to the ground while the other stayed tucked tiredly behind me. As I kneeled on the concrete it began to melt underneath me. The cloud around me seperated, my sight focusing on one single color: The gold-green iris' of Jamie Lightwood.

His face was so familiar it hurt. Even as the ground faltered underneath me slightly, I could feel water brimming in my eyes just looking at him. There was a battle raging around us, but the only thing I could hear was my heart beating thickly in my chest. The boy's mouth fell open as a mixture of bewilderment and despair washed over his beautiful features. His lazy bottom lip hung down as he tried to find something worth saying. Jamie's dark bronze hair was a mess of disheveled curls. It was the longest I'd ever seen it, and it clashed harshly against his pale skin. I'd never seen him look so ill or tired, his high cheekbones looking more prominent with the weight he'd seemed to have lost. It was unnerving. There was a scrape against his well-defined jaw, no other injury to be found besides that. His Shadowhunting gear hugged his solid frame like a second skin, runes covering both of his toned arms like tattooed sleeves.

Neither of us said a word.

"Children!"

The voice was large, like it had a personality of its own. There was a clarity to it, a demanding presence that didn't ask you the question of whether or not you wanted to listen. Every demon froze in its place, and for a moment so did we. It was like being rooted to the ground with no way out. My eyes flickered across the block. Most of the civilians had scattered and run for cover, some of those who hadn't been so lucky were lying on the ground moaning in pools of their own blood. It was the man in the black suit speaking, his hands clasped together in front of him as though he'd just closed a fantastic business deal. There wasn't a single wrinkle in his suit.

Jamie and I were both watching the man with anxious readiness, Jamie gripping the hilt of his favorite Seraph blade so tightly his knuckles turned starch white. Amara's friend strode forward as she watched smugly behind him.

"I think we've proved our point tonight, friends!" The man continued cheerfully. "Don't you?" he paused at the body of an old man who was curled tightly into a ball on the ground. The elderly man made some type of groaning noise that sounded like a plea for help. "Good," the well-tailored devil grinned. "Me too. It's now come time for me to ask my dear children to return home with us before our little Shadowhunters get too zealous."

The demons, those who were still alive and ambulatory, sulked their way back into the streets of New York, pouting as they crawled back to their master and into the pit from whence they came. I looked around at the battered, torn street, at the broken billboard signs and busted windows of local businesses. I locked eyes with the gorgeous blond man in the suit.

"Amara," he said easily, a glint of mischief in his eyes. "Do what you came for, My Love."

I knitted my eyebrows together, Amara grinning before disappearing into a cloud of black smoke. There was nothing there where she once stood but floating embers and a bit of ash. Jamie followed the man's gaze to me, his eyes widening just as Cora's had. There was a gust of warm air that blew across the back of my neck, bits of black smoke wafting over my shoulders as I whipped my head around.

Jamie screamed something as Amara gripped my throat in one of her hands, her black skin shimmering in the lights of New York as my body exploded into flame. The moment she touched me everyone within twenty feet flew backwards, a wave of pressure similar to the one I'd experienced the night I ruined the Institute flourishing from our connected bodies. It was the hottest I'd ever been, my skin blazing so furiously I could barely stand the pain. _S_o _this is what it's like to be burned alive_. Amara grinned as she sucked the life from my body, the tips of her fingers latching around my throat and turning a pale pink color. She was growing skin.

It stretched from her fingers, up into her arms, the woman sucking enough power from my soul to Glamour herself into looking like a true human being. Blood-red lipstick, a color that matched her dress, shimmered across her plush, full lips. She arched a perfect dark eyebrow at me smugly as I dropped to my knees in front of her. Her skin radiated a beautiful olive glow in the midst of our fire, her small, cat-like eyes trained on me. She was like a female viper, gorgeous and deadly all at once. There was a pulsating light around us, a glowing, raging fire that burned in our air. It was like someone had poured gasoline into our veins, igniting the flame that already burned like wildfire inside of us. I grit my teeth, curling my toes as the amused expression on her face sent a wave of fury ripping through my body.

There was electricity buzzing in my fingertips, jagged jets of blue-white light crackling over my skin. Amara's expression broke, the calm, collected, divine look she'd been wearing slowly melting off of her face as I raised my hand to those she had wrapped around my throat. I closed my fingers around her wrist, the lightning crackling dangerously as her flaming iris' went wide with surprise. I screamed, using every inch of will I had left.

Lightning shot out of my body as if I were some sort of exploding battery. Amara's hand left my throat, a mixture between a scream and a hiss leaving her body as we flew in opposite directions, my face connecting with the pavement. Jets of white crackling light zoomed out of my skin, connecting with every electrical appliance on the block. The digital billboards above us exploded, shop windows shooting glass everywhere from the force. DVD'S were popping and hissing in one of the stores, cash registers and security alarms malfunctioning if not disintegrating or exploding all around us.

I could hear Amara hiss in frustration, opening my eyes just enough to see the horror and fury scrawled across her beautiful new features. Her companion, the man in the black suit, looked thoroughly bored, slipping backwards into the chasm from whence he came. Amara's fiery eyes met mine, a spark growing in them as her voice made its way into my thoughts.

_This is not the last you have seen of me, Daughter of Heavenly Fire._

The fury restrained itself on her face, pulling back into a mask of strained patience and replaced with a smile as she skulked backwards, her blood-red dress fluttering in the chaotic wind.

The woman exploded into flame, the wall of fire surrounding her and shutting the crater in the ground closed, sealing it as though it had never existed. Car alarms were going off, engines catching fire, tires exploding. My lightning strikes had sent a wave through the ground, most of my friends dropping down onto the pavement and stiffening for a few moments if they hadn't been quick enough to flee.

I twitched pathetically on the ground, too weak to even roll onto my back as air struggled its way into my lungs. My fingers were curled on the ground in front of me, spasming every few seconds along with the other random muscles in my body. Every now and then, a small, circular wave of blue light would wash out of my body and across the ground surrounding me before fading back into the Earth. It had been like hitting Taz, except ten times worse. The edges of my vision were darkening. Jamie scrambled to his feet some distance away from me, debris flying up under his boots as he sprinted in my direction.

"Don't!" I choked as he dropped to his knees by my side. Jamie ignored my warning, a tiny jet of my lightning zapping at his finger as he tried to touch me. He snatched his hand back, clutching it to his chest for only a moment before reaching out to grab me again.

"Are you retarded?" Gemma spat bitterly at him. "Let somebody else have a go at it before she singes your hand off."

"Would you like to give it a try?" Jamie snapped back. "By the looks of how useless you are in battle your hands probably don't offer much contribution to this world anyways."

"What the fuck just happened?" It was Darren's voice this time, and although I was too afraid of the pain that would follow should I try to find his face, I could picture his expression twisted into the usual mask of confusion and annoyance.

"Where's Stasi?"

"Over there, with Taz."

Jamie grunted as he forced his hands against my back, my electricity hissing at his skin. I could only imagine the pain he was feeling, his fingers digging into my back as they stiffened and he tried to bear the pain. His left hand gripped the back of my shirt as if he were afraid I'd evaporate, his right hand pulling his stele out of his combat boot. I winced, the familiar pain of a healing rune flooding me as Jamie carved it into my shoulder blade.

I groaned, trying to shift my body at the sound of my brother's name. My brother, who had split the Earth beneath us in two and had somehow managed to turn me into a walking bugzapper. There was a burning, rigid pain in my shoulder, running across my collar bone where I'd been bitten, but I tried to ignore it.

"Stop," Jamie ordered, although his voice was gentle. I could see him reaching out to my face again, wincing as another wave of pulsating light swept across the surrounding ground like a wave kissing the shore. "Whatever the Hell you just did was on a whole other scale of insane. Don't try to move."

"Taz...and...everyone...everyone else-"

"He's fine," Jamie laughed breathlessly, almost as though he were relieved. I didn't understand what was so funny. "He's fine, I promise, he really is. Anastasia's with him now, we're all okay."

"Speak for yourself," Aaron whined somewhere behind me. "You weren't the one who flew through a store window." I couldn't look back to measure up the damage, but I didn't want to. Just looking at Jamie sent a rush of guilt through me that I couldn't out-think. There was blood smeared against the left side of his chin, claw-marks and and bruises covering his hands. His Shadowhunting gear was torn over the right side of his chest, a place where an ugly, scraggly, faded rune was hiding. It looked like a botched job to be honest, almost like he'd done it hastily, angrily, like he'd had a personal vendetta against the thing and didn't care how it'd come out.

"Jamie?" I whimpered quietly. The boy's face broke like a shattered heart, his golden eyes flooding with concern and longing as he brushed a lock of hair out of my face, wincing at the burn of my skin. "I don't...I..."

"Move!" Casper shouted, practically shoving Heaven out of the way at my head. Jamie tried to grab him by the shoulders, and although Casper wasn't as fast, he was just as strong. Both boys grappled with each other for a moment, sides quickly being chosen as each set of Shadowhunters readied their weapons for another fight. I could hear the click of Heaven's crossbow as she reloaded it, and the tinkling of a thick metal chain piling up against the gravel at Gemma's feet; the thick metal chain that lead to her favorite weapon: a bowling ball sized silver sphere that when activated grew razor-sharp blades that encircled it like a belt.

"If you ever in your life put your hands on my _parabatai _again," Jamie seethed, the boys face-to-face with little room between them. "I'll kill you."

"Wouldn't be the wisest decision considering I'm the only thing keeping Hazel alive right now," Casper fired smugly. "And we all know how you feel about your Hazel."

"At least we're on the same page when it comes to where she belongs." Jamie hissed back, his words burning into my mind.

Where I belong? This was the same Jamie that had decided I wasn't allowed back at the Institute. This was the same Jamie that couldn't be with me because of his People, because we both had destinies to fufill. He hated me. He hated what I'd done to him, and how I'd hurt him, and after burning down his home I'd figured he'd never be able to forgive me; yet here he was, calling me _his._

"Hazel," Jamie panicked, his voice raising slightly as my eyes fluttered. His voice was becoming blurry, like I was hearing it through a mountain of fuzzy blankets. "Hazel?!"

The stars were twinkling brightly above us, winking at me as if the entire spectacle had been amusing to them. There was something about the night sky that was promising, as though they were proof of the angels. I pretended it was them, burning brightly in the sky. They promised me a future after this. They promise me that one day, after I paid my dues and suffered for this world, I could burn in the night sky at their sides, winking down at whatever poor soul was next. They reminded me of the quote Clary had whispered to Jace as he died in her arms.

I struggled to suck in the next breath.

The world went black.


	26. Love Me Differently

**JAMIE**

* * *

It hurt to watch her hurt. Knowing Hazel was in bad shape while I was miles away made me want to throw up, no matter how much I didn't want to admit it. The second I'd seen her, I'd stopped in battle. That wasn't supposed to happen for my kind. We were supposed to be Shadowhunters before we dared to be anything else but the second I'd found her wide, dark eyes, I'd been frozen.

"She'll be fine," Heaven murmured at my side. We sat closely together in the hospital bed next to Taz's, the brown boy groaning incomprehensibly as Magnus worked over him. I was grateful Heaven was there. It was nice, having someone who could basically read your thoughts without you having to spill them yourself. The _parabatai _rune they'd inscribed on the back of my neck for her was humming warmly at her presence. "You know Hazel, she's a strong girl."

"I know," I replied hesitantly after a momentary pause. Heaven rolled her eyes at me before sighing and laying her face in her hands.

"It's okay to admit you have some sort of feeling for the girl," she grumbled into her palms. "I'm not going to chastise you for having a soul."

"Soul?" I asked appalled, pretending as if I didn't know the word. "What soul?"

"Will you two stop distracting me?" Magnus hissed, shoving the Healer's Book into Aaron's clumsy, wide hands. I made a face.

"But Magnus," I whined. "You can't help but be distracting when you're this beautiful."

Magnus and Heaven rolled their eyes at me in sync and I shot them both a look.

"Since when are you two twins?"

"We are not twins," Magnus fired quickly, almost making me defensive of my _parabatai_. I gave Magnus a look of disapproval. "I am no friend to the Nephillim."

"You've really got to get over this grudge you're holding," I scolded. "Alec wouldn't want you to be such a jackass."

Magnus' expression broke, and for a moment I'd almost wished I hadn't brought up my uncle's name. The two of them had been as in love as two people could be, my uncle having travelled to Hell itself to retrieve the warlock, and Magnus hadn't even _slept _with anybody since he'd died.

Sex was easy. It was fun, it was raw, it was absolute control in certain aspects, and if you were someone like Anastasia or Hazel, it was an easy distraction. I'd never asked Hazel about her past romances much, mainly because I didn't want to risk the chance of her admitting she missed one of them, but also because I liked to pretend I was the only one she'd ever been that close to. I knew it wasn't true. I knew, also, that I shouldn't have cared. But I did. A lot.

My cousin and Hazel had an affinity for using the way they looked to sucker poor guys like Aaron into falling at their feet until they felt better about themselves. I wasn't one to judge, I honestly _couldn't_ judge because I'd been the exact same way, but now that it was Hazel sleeping with other people (or at least I'd assumed that Casper would be an idiot for _not_ trying to sleep with someone who looked like her), it bothered me. I was suddenly in great opposition to promiscuity. I was the one who prowled around and showed off my glinting weapons and stories of single-handed demon slaughter. I'd slept with so many girls at the Los Angeles Institute that I wasn't even allowed back. Now, I didn't even want to think about sex.

Which was why I was so irritated that Heaven was sleeping with Troy. The girl with big amber eyes and tawny freckles shot me a defensive look.

"Shut up," she grumbled as the he passed through the Infirmary, waving to Aaron. "It's not that serious."

"What is it then?" I demanded gently. "Because I know you, and you're not at all the type of girl to have a 'Friend With Benefits'."

"I'm just...I don't even..." Heaven shrank into herself, leaning her elbows on her thighs as she buried her face into her small palms again. She did this when she was upset lately. Usually she was the type to "Talk it Out" and had been the main one demanding that I told Hazel how I felt six months ago, but whenever it came to Lucy it seemed like she could barely form a coherent sentence. I knew the feeling.

"You miss her."

"Yes!" Heaven cried, flinging her hands upwards. Magnus raised an eyebrow at her over Aaron's shoulder. The warlock was positioned behind him, an interesting sight considering the difference in their builds, his index finger skimming along a page in the Healer's Book as he explained what daffodil herbs were used for. "I just hate it, you know? I don't know if she's dead, or happy or,-"

"You honestly care if she's happy right now?" I raised my eyebrows at her. Heaven pursed her lips at me.

"Don't you care about Hazel?"

"Of course I care about Hazel!" I shot, clenching my eyes shut and shaking my head in silent scolding of myself. The words had come out before I could stop them and Heaven looked thoroughly pleased with having gotten me to admit such a thing. "I mean of course I care if she's _happy_..." I corrected dramatically. My voice quieted. "I just don't think _she _cares if she's happy."

"What do you mean?" Heaven asked quietly, her small blonde eyebrows knitting together. There was a small crease in between them that formed whenever she worried.

"Hazel's self destructive," I sighed honestly. "She's messed up, Heaven. She doesn't even know what she's doing half the time, she just does it."

"She's been through a lot," Heaven said defensively. The corners of my mouth quirked as I tried to hide a smile. Heaven and Hazel had never been close, but Heaven cared about what I cared about, which meant I had to care about Lucy.

"Aaron's been studying this magic crap for weeks-"

"It is _not _crap!" cried a defensive voice across from me.

"Shut up, Aaron. _Anyways, _he's obsessed with it, and he's learning quickly. If we find Lucy-_when _we find Lucy, we're going to fix whatever spell Creto put her under and she'll be right back to normal."

"You say that," Heaven murmured, her soft voice more quiet than usual. "But what if it isn't a spell? Darren said he can feel something is off with her, I guess we're lucky to have her _parabatai _here, but it still bothers me. There's a lot of things that could be 'off'. What if we're wrong and she wanted to leave with them?"

"Maybe that's how it started," Aaron shrugged, now fully engaged in our conversation. Magnus swatted him on the head as a signal to pay attention. "I'm just saying!" Aaron whined, wincing.

"What if we bring her back and she doesn't love me anymore?" Heaven whimpered quietly. It was the first time in a long time I'd seen her cool, respectable facade break down. Even as Heaven's _parabatai_, I rarely saw her be vulnerable. It was just the way she was, all faith and pride and a sense of knowing that none of the others had. I nudged her with my elbow, smiling gently.

"Then you'll know how I feel."

"You don't stop loving somebody," Aaron murmured quickly behind his book. He glanced up at Magnus for a moment as if he were waiting to get hit again, but the warlock was apparently feeling merciful. "All I'm saying is that night...I mean...what she said...Lucy sounded like she had her reasons."

My arms grew heavy with the memory of Hazel lying limply in them, her blood spreading through the water like oil as Lucy uttered her apology for what she'd just done.

I've seen what she'll do, Heav. She'll kill us all. Including you. And I couldn't let her do that. I couldn't let her do that."

"I remember," Heaven muttered bitterly, as if the memory made her wince. "It's the only thing I have left to hold on to."

We were all silent for a moment, Magnus murmuring Enchantments over Taz. The stillness of the room reminded me of the stillness that hovered over us the previous night in the streets of New York, glass and debris and hissing power lines scattering across the torn up gravel beneath us.

"Jamie!" Anastasia's voice had rung out urgently among the broken streets and corridors of buildings on the block we'd ruined. I could picture her black eyes widening in fear as she spoke. "Taz isn't breathing! We have to call Magnus!"

Hazel twitched at the sound of her brother's name but made no movement, my heart thudding thickly against my ribcage. Between the panic I was feeling about her condition and the rage that was burning through my skin for the Fallen angel in front of me, I'd felt as though I'd be sick.

"Shh," Casper had said hurriedly, his hands sliding off my shoulders as if our exchange had never happened. He took my place at Hazel's side, brushing a lock of dark, matted hair away from her face. He was the only person who could touch her without getting hurt, and the realization of it made me want to lurch.

I wanted to touch her.

I wanted to be holding her.

I would find a way to do it, even if it scarred my skin for the rest of my life.

"He's just tired, kiddo. We need to get you home. We need to get you to the House. You'll heal there." Cas had murmured.

"She isn't going anywhere." I'd shot acidly, my fingers brushing against the hilt of my Seraph blade as if I were daring Casper to give me reason to use it.

"So we should wait here for your warlock, in the middle of this chaos?" Cora argued angrily. I'd given her a dismissive look, misguided by her size, but Cora's voice had risen loud enough with her next words to earn every bit of my attention. "You hear that, Pretty-Boy? Those are _sirens. _Sirens mean _cops_, and unlike you and your little half-breed friends, we don't glamour ourselves from Mundanes. They're gonna wanna know what the Hell we're doing in the middle of this shit and how it happened."

"Fallen Angels can't glamour?" Aaron asked curiously. He was always asking questions at the wrong time.

"Guardians can." Darren fired, as if it mattered. He was panting, blood that wasn't his smeared against his collarbone. There was still a wild, unhinged look in his dark eyes, the look that always seemed to flourish in his iris' whenever he got the chance to slaughter something. Cora only grew more agitated, crossing her small arms.

"Yes, thank you Captain Obvious," she seethed, Darren giving her an appalled look. How could such a small person be so feisty? "Hazel can't glamour _at all_."

"But she's one of us-"

"She is _not _a Shadowhunter." Cora spat defensively. I'd winced as if someone had slapped me, as if it had ever been any secret that Hazel didn't belong with their kind. She couldn't even use Seraph Blades, his mind flashing to the event in the Training Room almost a year ago in which they tried to help her find her perfect weapon. No angelic blades would answer to her as she attempted to call out their names.

"She comes with us," Cas decided, rolling the slight girl onto her back. Hazel whimpered and there was no masking the grimace that flashed across my face. She'd looked so..._different, _as though each time I got to see her she became less and less herself. She'd still been straightening her God-forsaken hair, and that night it clung to her body, matted with blood and ichor. There was blood trickling down her right collarbone from the demon bite, the _iratze _I had carved into my skin burning gently as it worked to soothe her and ease her pain.

Hazel's hair slid against my neck and hung limply behind her like a flag as she dangled in Cas' arms. "She's under my protection and I won't leave her here to the mercy of you and your idiotic government."

I could hear the crunching of combat boots as Casper, followed by the Seven, began sifting their way across the debris.

My fingers had brushed hers gently as Casper carried her away. It had felt like the last time I'd ever get to touch her.

"Teenagers and their bouts of overwhelming passion," Magnus scoffed, snapping me back to reality. The memory of last night was quickly shoved to the back of my mind, the feel of Hazel's fingertips on mine causing my hand to buzz slightly. "None of you know what you want."

"Are you saying that because Alec had overwhelming passion, or because Aaron has yet to decide on which plant to stuff down Taz's throat?"

"I'm saying that," Magnus sighed with annoyance, "Because you have no idea how short life is."

"Coming from someone who's been alive for four-hundred-and-fifty years?" I fired back.

"Coming from someone who's seen enough death to last him thousands of lifetimes."

I was quiet, biting back any witty remarks in a moment of respect. Magnus still looked young, his dark blue cloak cascading down his long slender frame as if he were some sort of statue. His olive skin had a glowy sheen to it, like he was the healthiest he'd ever been, but there was a sadness that rested in his eyes and hadn't left since the day my uncle died. It seemed like with each death, actually, the sadness grew stronger.

I wondered if one day he'd be walking around with the shimmer of tears tattooed in his cat-like pupils.

"You should know first hand, Jameson, that life is short," I swallowed thickly, the crushing weight of my parents' death washing over me. It was like a lump of coal had lodged itself into my throat, refusing to move unless I threw it up. Heaven sensed my sudden distress, lacing her short skinny fingers in mine. I could feel her calloused palm pressed against my own, but it was still comforting. "If there's anything you should've learned from your parents, it's how to cherish the people you have while you still have them."

I scoffed, Magnus shooting me a deadly glare.

"It may not be my place to scold you," he said calmly, his voice clearly struggling to stay restrained. "But it's an incredibly sad sight to see an ignorant young man scoff at the people who died trying to keep him happy."

"Ignorant?" I fired back, my temper flaring at his outrageous statements. "You think I'm okay with this?" I found myself shooting onto my feet, towering over the warlock as Heaven tugged on my fingers lightly in warning. I snatched my hand away from her, an action I never would've thought possible as I continued in my fit of sudden rage. "You think I'm alright with the fact that I'm an orphan? With the fact that I couldn't save them?"

Magnus' face softened, his thin jaw relaxing as he pressed his eyes closed.

"Jamie-" he began softly.

"No!" I snapped, the wild rage burning into my bones. "I was supposed to save them! I was supposed to save _both _of them and I couldn't!"

"It isn't your fault-"

"It isn't?" I whirled on Heaven before she could get the rest of her sentence out and her thin, delicate mouth fell open in never having seen me so angry. "I've spent my entire life in that God-damned Training Room and for what?! I couldn't save my own parents, Heaven, how the Hell am I supposed to save anybody else!"

"Jamie," she said tightly, a cool mask of composure washing over her. There was concern littering her bright amber eyes, but she held it in check, trying to keep herself from feeding the fuel. "You've saved our lives countless times. I can't even begin to tell you how many demons you've rescued us fro-"

"But what the Hell was I doing when it really mattered?"

My words had hit her hard, and I could already see her begin to misinterpret them as she heaved in a deep angry breath and began twisting her light brown hair into a tight braid.

"It always mattered. At least it has to us."

"You have parents, Heaven, of _course _it matters to you. You've got a family to go home to at night. Do you want to know where I've lived my entire life? Here. I was raised _here_, I know these walls like the back of my own hand, not a spiral maze rune on this Earth could shift these corridors into a labyrinth I couldn't easily escape from. You have a life outside of Shadowhunting, Heaven, a future. You have Lucy, you have your Father. Magnus? What's holding you back, huh? What's your excuse?" I turned my attention to the weary warlock, who was flickering his eyes to Heaven for help as I continued to erupt.

"What's stopped you from traveling the world and unlocking every single secret the universe has to offer? Ever since Alec died you've locked yourself in that ridiculous glittery loft and refuse to come out-"

"Jamie!" Heaven hissed behind me. She rose to her feet immediately, still a foot and a half shorter. Her amber eyes were blazing at me with a mixture of sadness and anger.

"No!" I laughed, humorless. "It's true! The both of you know life outside of this and you refuse to go and grasp it! This is all I know! This is all I have! I was raised to play with knives instead of cars and used axes as baseball bats. I was locked in a wooden _box _for three days when I was seven and had to beat my way out of it in order to reach food and do you know why?" I didn't pause long enough for them to answer. "Because deep down inside, my Father was afraid I wouldn't be strong enough to fight whatever pain our world had to offer, so he raised me to _love it._"

"Jamie..." Heaven whispered. I cut a sideways glance at her small, trembling figure. She was fiddling with the cuffs of her grey sweater nervously, picking away bits of non-existing lint. "Jamie I didn't know-"

"Nobody knows." I grumbled, sinking back into my seat on the side of the thin bed. "I don't even think Mom knew."

"Your father loved you," Magnus insisted sternly. "I understand how hard it will be for you to grapple with that, but what your Father did...that was Jace loving you. He knew he wouldn't be around forever and he had to prepare you for that, to take care of yourself, to take care of Ella-"

"I get it," I shot bitterly. "I know he loved me. I just wish he could've loved me differently."

The wide iron doors of the Infimary swung open with the sound of a dozen hurried feet. My comrades rose to their feet, Aaron turning in his seat at Taz's side to see what was going on as a group of anxious Shadowhunters, led by Darren, scurried across the limestone floor in our direction.

"Jamie," Darren said breathlessly, banners of sunlight streaming over his flushed face as he passed the tall windows. "Hazel's going to Chicago."

"What?" I asked in annoyance, wrinkling up my face. The idea was agitating to me. Why couldn't this girl ever stay put? "How do you know this?"

"Brenton saw her buying a train ticket about an hour ago, said he bumped into her and saw the location stamped on the front."

I was already strapping on my Shadowhunting gear, Heaven pacing me quickly as I brushed past Darren's group.

"Guys!" Darren called behind us, shouldering through the crowd of teenagers and jogging behind us. "There's another thing."

"What is it?" I asked, grouchy as I snatched my jacket off the hook near the door.

"She's alone." Darren said hastily behind me. His voice was rushed and tinted the way it always was with a heavy mixture of desperation and an eagerness to prove himself so he wouldn't get left behind. "Her Guardian angel guy? He was nowhere in sight," Darren continued breathlessly. I could already see the glint in his eyes, the excitement of a possible battle running through his mind. "My guess is that she ran off before he could notice, but I still have no idea why she'd want to go to Illinois."

"I do," Heaven had stopped in her tracks, rubbing the bridge of her nose in annoyance like some kid had just knocked over her favorite vase. "Do you guys remember the Inquisitor's Ball last year, with Jordan Perez and the demon towers? And everyone there was put on Creto's hit-list?"

"Yeah?" I asked hastily, still not understanding. My _parabatai's _bright amber eyes were flickering between Darren and I nervously, her warm cheeks flushing. I slid _Michael_, my favorite Seraph blade, into the hilt strapped to my back, the metal sending a cold chill through my clothes."Heaven what does that matter? We're on like six-hundred hit-lists, I can literally name fifty people off the top of my head that want us killed. It really doesn't make a difference-"

"_Yes it does_," she insisted, frisking past me. I followed her without hesitation, Darren quick on my heels as he hastily buckled on his gear. "Everyone had to change location, Jamie. Everyone had to go into hiding."

"So?"

"There's only one person we know that would flee to a big city, one person that would need to be surrounded by thousands of people in order to keep their sanity."

"Are you understanding any of this?" Darren whispered desperately, shooting me a confused look. I shrugged, Heaven sighing in annoyance as we passed through the corridors that boxed around the main courtyard.

"Spiritual creatures need to feed of many spirits," Heaven called over her shoulder, her voice muffled by the bustle of the people walking past us. We passed the cherrywood halls, our footsteps echoing off the marble staircases as we jogged downstairs. "There's only one person who'd go to Chicago that Hazel would want to see," my _parabatai _continued. Heaven grabbed her boots from the thick oak endtable by the front door of the Institute, pausing and turning to us.

"She's going to the Oracle of Venice."


End file.
